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THE WIDENESS OF GOD'S MERCY 



THE WIDENESS OF GODS 






F. BJ 




Author of " Israel, a Prince with 
God.'' "Reveries and Real- 
ities," Blessed are Ye," etc. 




CINCINNATI: JENNINGS AND GRAHAM 
NEW YORK: EATON AND MAINS 



2 



*f' 



PREFACE 



The substance of the following pages 
was delivered as the Annual Sermon of 
the London Missionary Society, but I 
have greatly extended and amplified the 
original draft, until it has assumed the 
present shape. 

The main principles have long been 
shaping themselves in my mind ; and" I 
am convinced that they are truer to fact 
than much of the ordinary thinking and 
speaking which is in vogue with regard 
to the heathen world. 

God must be consistent with Himself, 
and pursue one method of dealing with 
mankind, though He speaks "by divers 
portions and in divers manners." 

F. B. Meyer. 

Christ Church, 
Westminster Bridge Road, 
July, 1906. 



CONTENTS 



CHAPTER PAGE 

I. Witnesses That Speak in All 

Languages for God, 9 

II. " Lame Hands op Faith," 32 

III. The Mission and Failure of the 

Hebrew People, - - - - 53 

IY. The Message of the Church, - 68 

V. The Unsaved Saviour, - - 87 

VI. The "Far-off Divine Event," - 112 



WITNESSES THAT SPEAK IN ALL 
LANGUAGES FOE GOD 

"Nevertheless He left not Himself without 
witness." — Acts xiv. 17. 

" The God that made the world and all things 
therein." — Acts xvii. 24. 

During the last hundred years, which 
is approximately the term of modern 
Missionary effort, a vast change has taken 
place in the views held by the Christian 
Church on the condition of the heathen 
after death. The old formulary, " The 
heathen are perishing ; shall we let them 
perish ? " does not mean to-day quite 
what it used to mean. The conception 
of the countless populations of the globe 
pouring in a steady cataract into the 
bottomless pit no longer grips and holds 
the mind or imagination, and as the 
destiny of the heathen world in the great 



10 THE WTDENESS OF GOD'S MERCY 

future becomes less defined and oppres- 
sive, one of the strongest incentives 
for Missionary endeavour is sensibly 
weakened, and good people are inclined 
to sav, "'Let us leave well alone. Things 
are not so bad as was feared. God is 
good, and all will come right at last." 
I venture to think that this attitude on 
the part of multitudes of Christian people 
is at the root of the present stagnation 
in Missionary enterprise, and the reason, 
in part, of the depletion of the Missionary 
exchequer. 

Nothing, therefore, is more necessary 
in the present day than to re-construct 
a basis and argument for Christian Mis- 
sions. We believe in God's love for the 
world, a love which includes every unit 
of the human familv: we believe that ours 
is a redeemed race, that the Cross has 
put away the sin of man, that in Christ 
God has reconciled the world to Himself ; 
we believe that in every nation he that 
feareth God and worketh righteousness 



WITNESSES THAT SPEAK FOE GOD 11 

is accepted by Him ; — what need then 
that we should preach the Gospel to every 
creature ? Granted that the marching 
orders of our Lord are clear and distinct^ 
is it possible to enforce them on the 
ground of reason and experience? 

An answer to these questions is fur- 
nished in the remarkable addresses of the 
great Apostle to the Gentiles, whether 
standing amid the remoter wilds of 
Lycaonia or the focussed glory of the 
pagan civilisation of his time. In 
these he necessarily touched upon the 
three main religious influences of the 
world : Natural Eeligion ; the Mission of 
Judaism; and the Message of the Gospel. 
These three threads were woven through- 
out the matchless fabric of his appeals. 
Let us consider specially that made 
before the Areopagus (Acts xvii. 19). 

The religion of ancient Greece lay 
altogether outside the influence of Hebrew 
literature and ideals. There was not even 
a synagogue in Athens ; and that city, 



12 THE WIDENESS OP GOD'S MERCY 

therefore — the crown and flower of 
Greece — gave unrivalled opportunity for 
the study of any solution, which the 
human mind can formulate, to the 
mystery of God, of life, and of the 
world. 

Driven thither by the violence of his 
enemies, and awaiting the arrival of his 
friends, the Apostle gave himself to the 
quiet study of the religious aspects around 
him. On every side stood the loftiest 
achievements of human genius. As he 
issued morning by morning from his 
humble lodging, he beheld the long colon- 
nades of shops, sublime conceptions in 
temple and statue, " the severe beauty 
of the Parthenon, the massive propor- 
tions of the Theseum, the exquisite 
elegance of the Temple of Wingless 
Victory, the rude grace and sinewy 
strength of the youthful processions, 
portrayed on frieze and entablature, and 
sharply defined in the sunny air." But 
as he passed his special interest was 



WITNESSES THAT SPEAK FOR GOD 18 

attracted by the objects of their worship, 
the inscriptions on their altars, and the 
discussions of Jew and Proselyte, of 
Stoic and Epicurean, concerning the 
sacred mysteries of religion. Paul was 
not indifferent to the attractions of art 
and beauty, but his soul was filled with 
an over-mastering religious enthusiasm, 
and was set on contrasting the results 
of natural religion with his message of 
Jesus and the Eesurrection. 

Athens was a city of statues, and his 
early training as a Jew prejudiced him 
against all representations of the human 
form. During his residence as a student 
in Jerusalem he had never once beheld 
in sculpture or painting the face or figure 
of man, and had been taught to consider 
such attempts as direct violations of the 
second word of the decalogue. But even 
these aroused less indignation than the 
images of the gods and goddesses, and 
the altars erected to their worship, 
which confronted him on every side. 



14 THE WIDENESS OF GOD's MERCY 

So numerous were the representations 
of the deities of the Pantheon that it 
was said to be more easy to meet a god 
than a man in the streets of Athens. 
Whichever way the. visitor turned, an 
altar confronted him, at which devotees 
were making their offerings. Small 
wonder then that the spirit of the 
Apostle was provoked within him as 
he beheld the city full of idols. 

But there was no passionate show of 
resentment in his speech. He did not 
open his mission to the Athenians by a 
furious tirade against the absurdity of 
idolatry as such, nor did he hold up to 
ridicule and scorn the obscene stories 
of their gods and goddesses, but with 
admirable sagacity and good sense he 
seized on the one hopeful sign in it all, 
that the people whom he was addressing 
were very eager and sensitive about 
religious matters. He was careful to 
place this sentiment in the forefront 
of his address. The rendering of the 



WITNESSES THAT SPEAK FOR GOD 15 

A. V., " I perceive, men of Athens, 
that in all things ye are too supersti- 
tious," is absolutely inadmissible. Even 
the " somewhat religious " of the E.V. 
does not meet the case. " Very devout" 
or " unusually religious " would be a truer 
rendering of the Greek ; and it is much 
to be regretted that for so long the 
impression has been produced that the 
first note of the missionary's address 
should be critical and polemical, rather 
than considerate and conciliatory. 

It seemed to Paul as though the pro- 
fusion of idols around him, and especially 
the altar reared to " an unknown God," 
were proofs of the strong and instinctive 
cravings of a religious spirit. So far 
from the claims of religion being regarded 
with coldness and apathy, here was a 
whole nation intent on religious inquiry. 
They were seeking God if haply they 
might feel after Him ; and the word 
employed is extremely picturesque, sug- 
gesting the fumbling of a blind man to 



16 THE WIDEKESS OF GOD'S MERCY 

iind the latch of the door. Tennyson 
hit off the conception with apt grace in 
his well-known lines : — 

I stretch, lame hands of faith, and grove, 
And gather :l;ist and chain and call 
To what I feel is Lord of ad. 

Th e re are five sour e e s 

.i''.\'/ are withi reach of 

who are outside what we know as Reve-.aiion. 

1. Tht Wizness of Creation. u Not a 
flower or leaf but bears the mark of God's 
unrivalled pencil! " What may be known 
of Him is :o;:.-d : o: :: men's inmost 
consciousness, for God Himself has made 
it plain to them : :or from the very crea- 
tion of the world His eternal power and 
divine nature have been made visible by 
His works (Rom. i. 19, 20). 

2. The Witness of I',:i:-/ Mercy. Ad- 
dressing a simple agricultural people, 
the Apostle, in obvious allusion to one 
of their familiar lyric songs, reminded 
them that during the past generations 
God had not left Himself without witness, 



WITNESSES THAT SPEAK FOR GOD 17 

because of the daily mercies which He 
had sent, " giving rain from heaven and 
fruitful seasons, filling men's hearts with 
food and gladness." Those who have 
visited the great plains of India, and 
seen the myriads of people engaged in 
their simple agricultural toils, and have 
interpreted them by the music of the 
old Vedic hymns, will be able to 
appreciate the Apostle's allusion. The 
exquisite and constant sunshine, the 
return of the bountiful seasons, and the 
rich yield of the soil, are all productive 
of thkt glad recognition of the Creator 
which His gifts are calculated to inspire. 
3. There is the Witness of Mans Moral 
Nature. From the beginning, the Eternal 
Word has lighted every man coming 
into the world. " As there was a diffused 
light through the universe before the 
sun, and as that diffused luminous mist 
became centred and embodied in the 
sun," so there always have been glimmer- 
ings of Truth in the minds of men, 
2 



18 THE WIDENESS OF GOD'S MERCY 

which have emanated from the Word of 
God. His Life was the Light of men. 
The great moral intuitions, common to 
all men, of every age, and dwelling in 
every quarter of the globe, show the 
work of the law written in their hearts, 
their conscience bearing witness there- 
with, and their thoughts accusing and 
excusing one another. 

4. The Fourth Witness has been supplied 
by the great Prophets and Teachers of the 
Race. Not from the Hebrew race alone, 
but from all races, God has called forth 
great souls who have received His 
messages for their contemporaries and 
all after time. We utter their names 
with reverence, and acknowledge the 
important contributions that have been 
made to the religious history of the race 
by Confucius, Buddha, Zoroaster, Plato, 
and other prophetic souls, who have 
reared themselves like soaring Alps above 
their fellows, catching and reflecting the 
light of the Eternal. Of course they have 



WITNESSES THAT SPEAK FOR GOD 19 

apprehended many of the truths and 
almost the phrases which are familiar 
to the lovers of the Bible, because all 
truth is one, and the Spirit of Truth is 
one, and the Light that is diffused from 
the Word, Who was and is, and is to 
come, must ever be one and the same. 

5. The Fifth Witness has been fur- 
nished by the Educative Effect of Divine 
Providence. The words of the Apostle in 
this discourse before the men of Athens are 
as significant as they are unmistakable. 
As a father will- plan the education of 
his children with careful thought that 
each may have the best opportunity of 
developing and using his special powers, 
so he describes the Almighty as having 
prescribed for each nation the times of 
its rise, ascendancy, and fall, its allotted 
position on the map of the world, its 
precise location in time and place among 
the nations, that its children might have 
the best opportunity possible for seeking 
alter God, if haply they might feel after 



20 THE WIDENESS OF GOD'S MERCY 

Him and find Him. The pressure of 
war, the struggle for supremacy, the 
stern discipline of defeat, the anguish of 
oppression— all were permitted and in- 
tended, like the experiences of the Book 
of Judges, to lead the peoples of the 
world to search and try their ways, and 
turn again to Him. A history has yet 
to be written which shall show the loving 
purpose of God amid the fret of the 
tides and storms which have swept the 
seas of human history. 

As the result of these sources of religious 
knowledge and inspiration, men have made 
profound discoveries. One of the noblest 
monuments to the results of natural 
religion is that furnished by the Book of 
Job: 

The Spirit of God hath made me, 

And the breath of the Almighty giveth me life. 

He stretcheth out the north over empty space, 

And hangeth the earth upon nothing. 

He buildeth up the waters in His thick clouds, 

And stirreth up the sea with His power. 

By His Spirit the heavens are garnished, 

His hand hath pierced the swift serpent. 



WITNESSES THAT SPEAK FOR GOD 21 

Lo, these are but the outskirts of His ways, 
And how small a whisper do we hear of Him, 
But the thunder of His power who can under- 
stand ? 
Behold ! I am vile, what shall I answer Thee ? 
I lay my hand upon my mouth. 

To this magnificent tribute to the 
discoveries of natural religion we may 
add one or two extracts from other 
sources, of the results of man's search 
for the unknown God. This from the 
Vedas : " One sovereign Euler pervades 
this world of worlds. Nurture thyself 
with that single thought. This one 
single Spirit, which nothing can disturb, 
is swifter than the thought of man. It 
moves the universe at its pleasure ; it is 
distant from us, and yet very near to all 
things ; it pervades this entire universe, 
and yet is infinitely beyond it. The man 
who has learnt to recognise all beings in 
this Supreme Spirit, and this Supreme 
Being in all things, can henceforth look 
upon no creature with contempt. ,, " 
God, who knowest all beings, purify us 



22 THE WIDENBSS OF GOD'S MERCY 

from every sin, and we shall be enabled 
to consecrate to Thee our holiest adora- 
tions." 

These noble confessions belong to the 
dawn of history, in the blue azure of 
that past when our forefathers still 
dwelt under the shadow of the Hima- 
layas. At a later period, though still 
very ancient, these words are put in the 
lips of Krishna : " I am the cause of 
the production and dissolution of the 
whole universe. There exists no other 
thing superior to me. On me is all the 
universe suspended, as pearls on a string. 
I am the savour in waters, and the 
luminous principle in moon and sun. I 
am dear to the spiritually wise beyond 
possessions, and he is dear to me." 

Or descend still further on the stream 
of Time. Seneca writes thus to his friend 
Lucilius, " God is near you, is with you, 
is within you, A sacred Spirit dwells 
within us, the Observer and Guardian of 
all our evil and our good. There is no 



WITNESSES THAT SPEAK FOR GOD 23 



good man without God. Even from a 
corner it is possible to spring up into 
heaven. Eise therefore, and form thy- 
self into a fashion worthy of God ; thou 
canst not do this, however, with gold and 
silver : an image like to God cannot be 
formed out of such materials as those.'' 

Let these quotations suffice — they are 
enough to show that it has always been 
possible for the human mind to arrive at 
very sublime and true conceptions of the 
nature of God : and they are a striking 
comment on those great words of 
Malachi, " From the rising of the sun 
even unto the going down of the same, 
God's name is great among the nations, 
and in every place incense has been 
offered unto His name, and a pure offer- 
ing ; for His name is great among the 
Gentiles." 

There can be no doubt that by these 
means myriads of souls, who lived and 
died with no other teaching than that of 
natural reason, have entered into the 



24 THE WIDENESS OF GOD'S MERCY 

Kingdom, coming from east and west, 
from north and south, to sit down with 
Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob — the repre- 
sentatives of the children of Eevelation — 
in the Kingdom of Heaven : and they 
have been admitted on precisely the same 
terms as those on which we hope to be 
accepted. 

It is sometimes said thoughtlessly that 
the heathen will be saved if they live up 
to the light they have. But who has ever 
lived up to the light he had? Do we 
live up to the light we have ? If our 
salvation depended on our living up to 
the light we had, who of us would pass 
muster? No, we are saved because we 
exercise faith in God. Like Abraham, 
the father of them that believe, we 
believe in God, and our faith is reckoned 
to us for righteousness; i.e., it is the 
germ of the religious and holy character, 
which shall ultimately emerge and be 
conformed to the image of the Son. 
Underneath all is the reconciliation 



WITNESSES THAT SPEAK FOR GOD 25 

wrought by God in the person of the 
dying Kedeemer, which removed every 
obstacle to the full outpouring of divine 
grace to us and to every member of the 
human family. But we are saved, not 
because we have accurate views of that 
redemption, but because we are joined 
by a living faith to Him who made the 
redemption; faith being the channel 
through which God may pour Himself 
to our infilling. 

Similarly God deals with the heathen. 
They also are saved by faith, on the 
basis of the finished Eedemption of the 
Lord Jesus. In other words, if they 
exercise faith towards such knowledge 
of God as is possible to them, i.e., if 
they possess a faith which, if they had 
had the chance of knowing Christ, would 
have leapt to Him, and touched the 
hem of His garment, God, who searches 
the heart, and knows what would have 
happened in Tyre and Sidon and the cities 
of the Plain, if they had heard of the 



26 THE WIDENESS OF GOD'S MERCY 

mighty works of Christ, deals with them 
on the basis of the faith they have, 
anticipating the hour when that faith, 
which is an attitude towards God, and 
the embryo capacity for receiving God, 
shall no longer be an unfurled bud, 
but shall open to its full radiance and 
glory in the tropical atmosphere of 
heaven. 

I can never forget the discussions 
which I was accustomed to hold in 
India at the close of my addresses. As 
I write, one specially comes to mind. 
At the close of an afternoon service in 
one of the public halls of Bombay, a 
number of intelligent and thoughtful 
men gathered round me, who said that 
my teaching of the inner life, and 
especially of the negation of self, was 
not what they were generally accus- 
tomed to hear from the lips of a 
Christian teacher, though it was exactly 
in line with much that was taught in 
their own religious books. They told 



WITNESSES THAT SPEAK FOR GOD 27 

me that one objection which they had 
towards the religion of Jesus Christ was 
that, so far as it had been presented to 
them, it seemed so exclusively objective 
in its testimony, and gave so little room 
for those deeper teachings of the sub- 
jective discipline of the spirit which 
appeared to them so all-important. 
Prom that conversation, as from many 
others that 1 held in India, I came to 
the conclusion that it would be wiser if 
missionaries could find out the point to 
which God's training has led inquiring 
souls around them in order to lead them 
forward by those further revelations 
which Christ has given. We should 
seek out the Corneliuses of the world, 
men who have gone as far as natural 
religion can carry them, and whose 
tears and prayers come up as a memorial 
before God. They are waiting for our 
message. They are prepared for it. 
They will receive it gladly. The Holy 
Spirit will fall on them whilst we 



28 THE WIDENESS OF GOD'S MERCY 

speak ; and they may be trusted to 
pass on the glad tidings to their kins- 
folk and near friends. When travelling 
through India, I habitually asked of the 
missionaries, "Do you know of a Cor- 
nelius in this district?" Invariably I 
was answered in the affirmative. Every- 
where there are devout souls, who have 
gone as far as their opportunities 
allowed, and are yearning for a com- 
pleter revelation, and especially for the 
announcement that Christ is the 
Wisdom and the Power of God. Such 
men are prepared by God to become 
the recipients and transmitters of the 
higher revelations of the Gospel. Than 
these, it would be impossible for our 
missionaries to have nobler coadjutors 
and allies. They are like prepared 
beacon-fires, which only need an 
illuminating and kindling spark. 

It is interesting to recall the eagerness 
with which the non-Christian natives 
of India heard from my lips teaching 



WITNESSES THAT SPEAK FOR GOD 29 

as to those higher or deeper truths, 
concerning the crucifixion of the self- 
life in order to the indwelling of the 
Son of God, by the power of the Holy 
Spirit ; and I have been since deeply 
convinced that the prime work of our 
missionary societies is to discover the 
souls with whom the Divine Spirit has 
already been at work, ascertaining the 
stage which they have reached in the 
divine life, and endeavouring to lead 
them forward to those loftier concep- 
tions and fuller receptions of God which 
are only possible where the full-orbed 
splendour of New Testament light is 
shining. These, as I have said, become 
our best allies and helpers in further 
permeating the masses, which have 
been content with living on the lowest 
levels, convicting them of sin, and 
leading them into the powers of the 
world to come. 

You may remember how Frederic 
W. H. Myers deals with this scene ; and 



30 THE WIDENESS OF GOD's MERCY 

the effect that the Apostle's words had on 

the woman Damaris. It is a parable 

w 7 hich illustrates and confirms all I have 

said. 

She as one wild, whom many stripes 
enharden, 

Leapt many times from torture of a dream, 
Shrank by the pallid olives of the garden, 

Groves of a teacher, and Ilissus stream. 

Then to their temple Damaris would clamber, 
Stood where an idol in the lifted sky, 

Bright in a light and eminent in amber, 
Heard not, nor pitied her, nor made reply. 

Thence the strong soul, which never power 
can pinion, 
Sprang with a wail into the empty air ; 
Thence the wide eyes upon a hushed 
dominion 
Looked in a fierce astonishment of prayer. 

Looked to Hymettus and the purple heather, 
Looked to Peirseus and the purple sea. 

Blending of waters and of winds together, 
Winds that were wild and waters that were 
free. 

Therefore with set face and with smiling bitter, 
Took she the anguish, carried it apart ; 

Ah, to what friend to speak it ? it were 
fitter 
Thrust in the aching hollows of her heart. 



WITNESSES THAT SPEAK POK GOD 31 

Then I preached Christ, and when she heard 
the story, 
Oh, is such triumph possible to men? 
Hardly, my King, had I beheld Thy glory, 
Hardly had known Thine excellence, till 
then. 

Thou in one fold the afraid and the forsaken, 
Thou with one shepherding, canst soothe 

and save : 

Speak but the word ! the Evangel shall 
awaken 
Life in the lost, the hero in the slave. 



II 

"LAME HANDS OF FAITH" 

" That they should seek the Lord, if haply 
they might feel after Him, and find Him, 
though He be not far from every one of us." 
— Acts xvii, 27. 

It is remarkable to notice the state- 
ment which the Apostle makes in these 
far-reaching words. He tells us precisely 
that God has appointed and determined 
the seasons or times at which the nations 
appear on the face of the earth, the 
duration of their existence and the pre- 
cise bounds of their dominion. It was 
not by accident that the great empires 
of the Euphrates preceded all later 
civilisation. The rise, glory and fall of 
Egypt were matters of Divine prescience 
and arrangement. Greece and Eome, 
Spain and Germany, Great Britain and 
the United States, have coloured the 



"lame hands of faith" 33 

map of the world in the order and after 
the fashion which the Almighty pre- 
arranged, just as successive orders of 
annuals and flowering plants succeed 
each other in the gardens and on the 
wolds. Nothing left to haphazard, 
nothing trusted to chance, nothing the 
result of the wit or vehemence of man. 

The Apostle says that all these arrange- 
ments as to season and location were 
determined in order " that men should 
seek the Lord, if haply they might feel 
after Him and find Him." Thus every 
race of man has had an opportunity of 
knowing God which was best suited to 
its special peculiarities. The Egyptians, 
for instance, who built the Pyramids and 
reared the Sphinx upon the sands, had a 
better chance of being religious and 
knowing God within those sedate and 
slow-moving ages, when the scream of 
the locomotive and the rush of the 
motor-car were unknown. It will be seen 
at last that every man and household, 
3 



34 THE WIDENESS OF GOD'S MERCY 

every family and nation, was situated in 
the best possible position to promote the 
discovery of God. 

But after all there are great limitations 
to the discoveries of natural religion. 
Only a few comparatively find their way 
through the strait gate into the narrow 
path. For the few that feel after God 
and find Him, there are uncounted 
myriads who sink back into the swift- 
flowing waters of self-indulgence and 
sensual passion. And even of the elect 
souls of natural religion it must be 
admitted that there is a bewildering 
uncertainty, a sickening sense of fear, 
and often profound moral lapse, which 
have left indelible stains on their record. 
God spoke to men at sundry times and 
in divers manners, but the sayings upon 
the harps of human consciousness have 
been dark. Men have had no idea of 
God's love and goodness as they have 
been revealed in Christ. Augustine 
spoke wisely when he said that in Plato 



" LAME HANDS OF FAITH " 85 

and Cicero he had met with many utter- 
ances which were beautiful and wise, but 
amongst them all he had never found 
" Come unto Me, all ye that labour and 
are heavy laden, and I will refresh you." 
Bishop Butler's words come back to our 
memory, when he said that the great 
doctrines of a future state and the 
dangers of a course of wickedness, and 
of the efficacy of repentance, are taught 
in the Gospel with a degree of light 
to which that of nature is darkness. 

We cannot forget that Marcus Aurelius, 
the loftiest of pagan moralists, cruelly 
persecuted the Christians of the empire. 
Contrast the noble witness given by the 
founder of the Moslem faith to the Unity 
and Spirituality of God with the gross 
sensuality of his later life. Bear in mind 
that the tit-bits we have selected from 
the sacred books are in many cases as 
jewels flashing on continents of mud ; 
that the philosophy of Confucius leaves 
the great Chinese people with the 



36 THE WIDENESS OF GOD'S MERCY 



superstitious worship of ancestors and 
with no knowledge of God ; that the 
nature-worship of the East has always 
descended into unknown depths of vice ; 
that the teeming multitudes of India are 
tormented by the fear of Nats, ghosts, 
departed spirits ; that their temples and 
priests promote the gratification of the 
basest passions under the guise of 
religion ; and that far and wide through- 
out the world infanticide is practised, 
woman is debased, abominable cruelty is 
practised in war and peace, religion is 
reduced to prayer-wheels, fortune-telling, 
medicine-doctors, and the senseless 
repetition of meaningless rites. Let it 
not be forgotten also that the first chapter 
of the Eomans, in which the Apostle 
describes the world of his time, cannot 
be read through in a Christian con- 
gregation, but, as missionaries will tell 
you in private and confidential talks, may 
be taken as an unexaggerated account of 
the condition of the major portion of the 



'lame hands of faith" 87 

heathen world. Men may say what they 
will about Eegent Street and Piccadilly 
Circus, but at least they must acknow- 
ledge that their abominations are done 
at night, are veiled as far as possible by 
stealth, are condemned by the laws of our 
statute-book, and cause a blush not 
only to Christians, but to the average 
intelligence and morality of our time 
— very different this to the immorality 
which flaunts itself in heathen lands 
under the eye of day, and assumes the 
garb of religious rites. The faiths of 
paganism, it has been truly said, lack 
the dynamic power which is indispen- 
sable for the deliverance of men from 
the mastery of sin, for the creation of 
the purest manhood and womanhood, 
or for effecting social and communal 
regeneration. 

Perhaps the worst symptom of all is 
the apathy with which the non-Christian 
peoples view their moral condition, as 
individuals, or in their institutions. The 



38 THE WIDENESS OF GOD'S MERCY 

missionary's chief difficulty is to pierce 
the crust of proud and supercilious 
satisfaction with things as they are, to 
break up the moral torpor, to create the 
sense of sin. and to excite those yearn- 
ings after a better life which are the 
pre-requisite of salvation. 

To sum up : (1) The heathen are never 
certain about God. They go forward, 
but He is not there, and backward, 
but they cannot perceive Him. If the 
Pleiades tell them of His smile, what of 
Orion ? If summer with her horn of 
plenty encourages them to count on His 
love, what of winter with its iron soil 
and dark skies? (2) They think that 
they must propitiate Him with gifts. But 
the question is how much will He 
demand. Shall thev give their first- 
born for their transgression, the fruit 
of their body for the sin of their soul ? 
and can they even then count surely on 
His forgiveness ? ;3) They are not sure 
about the Future. They go to the land 



"lame hands of faith" 39 



of darkness, and of the shadow of death, 
without any order, where the light is as 
darkness. The pagan chieftain, who 
arose in the council assembled to 
hear Paulinus, uttered the spirit of 
all thoughtful non-Christian religions 
when he compared human life to the 
swift flight of a sparrow through the 
royal supper-room in winter. It flies in 
at one door and out at another. After 
a short space in the brilliantly lit apart- 
ment, it vanishes out of sight into the 
storms of snow and rain. " So this life 
of man appears for a short space, but 
of what went before and of what is 
to follow we are utterly ignorant." 
(4) Natural Religion cannot supply power 
unto salvation. It is a mistake to suppose 
that the state of the world, as it is 
to-day, is due to the determined choice 
of man to be evil ; it is rather due to 
inability to be and do the things which 
reason and conscience alike demand. 
The story of Heathenism is the long 



40 THE WIDENESS OF GOD'S MERCY 

bitter record of bright hopes dimmed, of 
the desert-mirage dying on the sands, of 
the mockery of the most resolute vows, 
the most strenuous endeavours. Men 
have seen and approved the better, but 
for lack of power seem doomed to do the 
worse. " Brought into captivity, " " sold 
under sin," these are the expressions 
which best describe man's moral condi- 
tion, while his better self cries out from 
the dungeon it has built around itself, 
" miserable man that I am, who shall 
deliver me from the body of this death ? " 
That marvellous piece of sculpture, 
"The Dying Gladiator," seems struck 
out of stone to crystallise for ever the 
spirit of the age in which it was pro- 
duced — an age of blank despair, un- 
relieved by a single ray of hope. In the 
wisdom of God mankind knew not God ; 
and the hopelessness that fell like a spell 
on some of the wisest and strongest 
spirits of the age in which Christ was 
born was a midnight darkness, which 



"lame hands of faith" 41 

has left appalling records in words that 
call across the centuries from the pages 
of the classic authors. 

But all through this dense and hope- 
less darkness the heart of man never 
ceased to feel after God, if haply it might 
find Him. As the shell drawn from the 
ocean depths and borne far inland when 
placed to the ear continues to sigh for 
the roaring seas, its native home, so the 
soul of man has ever cried out for God, 
for the Living God. Often it was only a 
sense of vacancy, of an empty void, or 
an unsatisfied instinct. Men knew not 
what they wanted, but knew they wanted 
something. As the prodigal could not 
rest in the far country, so man could 
not rest apart from the home of the 
Eternal Father. 

In the Exhibition of 1862 there was 
a beautiful statue of a girl in a listening 
attitude, which commemorates an inci- 
dent connected with the slow occupation 
of territory in the Far West. In those 



42 THE WIDENESS OF GOD ? S MERCY 

days, when there was almost ceaseless 
strife between the Indians and the 
settlers, a baby girl was stolen from a 
white settlement, and adopted by an 
Indian tribe, where she grew up to 
beautiful girlhood. The mother never 
ceased her search for her child. She 
believed instinctively that she was living 
somewhere. For weary years she visited 
every Indian tribe with the same inquiry, 
and at last was told that in the midst 
of a fierce and distant community a 
beautiful white girl had been seen by 
the traders. Thither the mother wended 
her way. As soon as she caught sight 
of the girl's face, her maternal heart 
recognised her child, but so many years 
had passed that there was no recogni- 
tion on the part of the maiden until the 
mother began to croon over the songs 
with which she had been accustomed to 
soothe her baby to slumber, and when 
the tremulous voice sang again those 
cradle-songs of far-away years they 



14 LAME HANDS OF FAITE n 43 

awakened memories in the girl's heart. 
She stood wistfully listening, and then, 
with a rush of tears, cried " Mother,' 
the one word which she remembered of 
the old English tongue. It was thus 
that God sought man, and man needed 
God, and as the voice of the unseen 
Father sounded through creation and 
rang down into the depths of the heart, 
man wistfully stood listening. On the one 
hand, there was the blackness of dark- 
ness, an almost desperate hopelessness, 
and on the other there was the unfail- 
ing search. So it befell that, instinc- 
tively, the race turned away from lower 
forms of religion, from the stone-circle 
with its human sacrifice, from the licen- 
tious rites of the Phoenician groves, from 
the abominations of Moloch, Chemosh, 
and Baal. In the face of the trend and 
current to which the gratification of 
the lower passions inclined them, men 
cherished the consciousness that there 
must be something better for them than 



44 THE WIDENESS OF GOD'S MERCY 

these, and sighed with unutterable and 
insatiable desire for light and life and 
love. 

One of the most striking scenes it was 
ever my lot to witness, which illustrates 
the rejection on the part of man of the 
lower conceptions of God for the higher, 
was that furnished by my visit to 
Benares. On our arrival there, as we 
drove slowly through the streets, we 
were arrested first by the infinite number 
of temples that met the eye at every turn. 
There are more than 1,900 of them, and 
the multitude of chapels is beyond all 
counting. Indeed, the idol population 
is nearly twice as numerous as the 
human, amounting to something like 
500,000. The tortuous streets were 
swarming with half -naked men. It was 
impossible to enter the sacred places 
because of the density of the crowds. 
Here the Brahmins walked majestically; 
there the Fakirs sat at the street corners, 
naked and covered with ashes, their 



"lame hands of faith" 45 

glassy eyes fixed as though they saw 
nothing. Eight and left the streets were 
lined with stalls covered with religious 
objects, necklaces, rosaries, and strange 
emblems. Situated in niches in the 
walls, monstrous gods with elephan- 
tine heads and serpent-encircled bodies 
greeted us. Wells, supposed to be in- 
habited by gods, from which foetid 
odours arose, were encircled by dense 
masses of struggling people. Presently 
a procession would come along for which 
everybody must make way, or the sacred 
cattle would receive universal homage. 
Along the roofs monkeys gambolled and 
chattered. It seemed as though the 
millions of the past who had thronged 
those streets were still pervading them 
with their presence, and the atmosphere 
was heavy with the pressure of the power 
of darkness. 

On the following morning we visited 
the sacred river Ganges, which spread 
its brown choppy current between the 



46 THE WIDENESS OF GOD'S MERC? 

desert stretch of sand on the right 
bank and the long line of temples, 
palaces, and mosques with marble walls 
on the left. All along the shore immense 
stairs descended to the water's edge, on 
which the morning sunshine was glitter- 
ing. These steps were crowded with 
pilgrims, worshippers, and priests, who 
had come to adore the rising sun, and 
perform their ablutions in the river. It 
is impossible to forget the scene when 
once it has been witnessed — that broad 
stream, those flights of steps, the vast 
throngs of people, men and women, 
Brahmins and Sudras, pilgrims from all 
parts of India, lifting the water to their 
heads, flinging themselves into the water, 
standing in the attitude of prayer, or 
drinking long, deep draughts. Amidst 
all this moving scene are the funeral 
piles on which the dead are burnt, the 
ashes from which will presently be thrown 
into the water. Thousands of pigeons fly 
about in the pure air, crows and vultures 



11 LAME HANDS OF FAITH M 47 

wait for their food, smoke arises from 
the cremation of the dead bodies. 

This is Hindooism, with its adoration 
of 330 million gods ; with its worship of 
animals, trees, plants, and stones ; with 
its pantheism, polytheism, and dreams 
of incarnation; which worships life as 
it comes and goes, and finds expression 
in all sorts of objects. It was a never-to- 
be-forgotten spectacle, and to realise that 
this had gone on for uncounted centuries, 
and to remember that it is going on every 
day still, and that, in spite of everything 
that Christianity can do, it is still 
vigorous, gives a new commentary to the 
text that men feel after God if haply 
they may find Him. 

But in the midst of all this, looking 
upward, our gaze was suddenly arrested 
by the vision of a lovely mosque whose 
white exterior gleamed against the blue 
of the sky. Its twin minarets sprang 
straight upwards, as though protesting 
against the hideous corruptions of 



: 



Hindooism, and r -:"ir.g for a higher 
and loftier conception of the Deity. 
TThilst the murmur and rustle of multi- 
QOUfi life arises iroin the river bank. 
there high uj aVove it all in its serene 
calm stands this white mos::ue. :r:m:ke 
pinnacle of which the muezzin :".;ily calls 
for prayer and cries. " There is no God 
but God. and Mohammed is Hisprophet." 
It was there that for the first time I 
unde: : : :". the true significance of 
Mohammed's protest against the degrada- 
tion of the cor. was 
prevalent in his time. It seemed as 
thou gh the d n ] h i : b h ad become 
a : h : ugh there was no hope of 
arresting the downward progress of the 
world, as though the mind of man were 
destined to be for ever drenched and 
steeped in the grossest immorality and 
materialism. TiirU Mohammed was 
raised up. and as the ploughshare breaks 
up the clods, so his conquests and those of 
his generals were used to break up the 



" LAME HANDS OF FAITH " 49 

religions of the world, and especially to 
be the scourge of the recreant Christian 
Church. And here in India, the marvel- 
lous exhibitions of genius which charac- 
terised the Mohammedan invasion under 
Akbar Khan — the Taj, the Pearl Mosque, 
the palaces and treasures of Agra and 
other cities, all reveal the accomplished 
emancipation of the human mind from 
the maze and misunderstanding with 
which it had been so long enchained, 
and its protests on behalf of a sublimer, 
purer faith. 

What was true in that one instance 
has no doubt been true of the rise of 
every great religion which the world has 
ever seen. What was Confucianism, or 
Buddhism, the religion of Zoroaster, or 
Moslemism, but the feeling after God, the 
expression of a passionate desire to find 
God, the revolt against the lower forms 
and conceptions of the Divine Being, and 
the insistence that the Creator must be 
greater than the creature, that somewhere 
4 



50 THE WIDENESS OF GOD'S MEECY 

there must be a great Spirit who could 
satisfy the aspirations and yearnings of 
the spirit of man. 

The Infinite Father, whose offspring 
men are. as the Apostle tells us, must 
have regarded all these efforts with 
infinite tenderness. His Spirit was even 
then striving with the false notions of 
men. and bv His sure guidance He was 
leading the race slowlv towards the 
fulness of the time when He should speak 
to all men through His Son. " "Who is the 
effulgence of His glory, and the express 
image of His person/' The satisfaction 
of the race could not be indefinitely 
delayed, and so we come to the magnifi- 
cent assertion of the Apostle that when 
the fulness of the time was come, " God 
sent forth His Son, born of a woman, 
born under the law, that He might 
redeem, and that men might receive 
the adoption of sons. ,? Through this 
long process, as we have seen, there 
were innumerable multitudes who, like 



"lame hands of faith" 51 

Cornelius, feared God and wrought 
righteousness, and of whom Peter said, 
" God is no respecter of persons, but in 
every nation he that feareth Him and 
worketh righteousness is acceptable to 
Him." 

A number of natives once asked me 
what, in my judgment, had become of 
their ancestors. I replied that it depended 
entirely upon whether they had exercised 
faith in such light as they possessed, 
for if they had done so it seemed to me 
reasonable to suppose that God, Who 
searches the heart, and knows all things, 
would give them credit for a faith which, 
if Christ had been proclaimed to them, 
would certainly have embraced Him 
because it so eagerly received that amount 
of truth which lay within its reach. I 
said that God would impute righteous- 
ness to faith, though knowledge were 
very slender and immature, just as He 
imputed righteousness to the faith of 
Abraham, " which he had being yet 



52 THE WIDENESS OF GOD's MERCY 

uncircumcised." It is not the amount of 

"S. 

tj'uth that faith embraces, but it is the 
attitude of faith towards such truth as is 
revealed that determines the condition of 
the soid both here and hereafter. " But," 
I said, " as soon as your forefathers 
entered the other life, they would discover 
that they were accepted in the virtue of 
what Jesus Christ did for every man 
when He tasted death on the Cross, and 
became a Propitiation for the sins of the 
whole world. The first thing, as it 
appears to me, which will happen upon 
the other side, is that God will explain 
to the souls of men who are accepted 
and crowned that it is not by works of 
righteousness which we have done, but 
by His mercy that He has saved us, 
through the grace of the One Man, Jesus 
Christ." 



Ill 



THE MISSION AND FAILURE OF 
THE HEBEEW PEOPLE 

" Whose is the adoption, and the glory, 
and the covenants, and the giving of the law, 
and the service of Q-od, and the promises." — 
Eonr. ix. 4. 

Our attention and the attention of 
the civilised world has been called, with 
infinite pity, to the sad plight of the 
Russian Jews. It is almost incredible 
that at this time in the world's history, 
and in the light of Christian civilisa- 
tion, such enormous wrongs should be 
possible. 

Their civilisation antedates that of 
the modern world. Moses preceded 
Lycurgus by at least eight hundred 
years. Before Troy had fallen, or 
Homer sang, or Ulysses went on his 
wanderings, God had called Abram, the 



54 THE WIDENESS OF GOD'S MERCY 

first Hebrew, out of the rich culture and 
science of the Euphrates valley, which 
recent explorations have revealed, to 
become the ancestor of an elect race. 

It is the custom of many to regard 
that word with suspicion, but it is a 
great word, and contains a great con- 
ception. Too often it has suggested 
ideas of privation and exclusion, as 
though some great blessing had been 
communicated to a few, which the great 
masses of men were neither allowed nor 
intended to share. There could not be 
a grosser misunderstanding of the Word, 
and it would be impossible more abso- 
lutely to misread God's intention, than 
to suppose that, at His arbitrary 
pleasure, He had deigned to bless- a 
few select souls, whilst the whole human 
race was left to rot in destitution and 
misery. 

Election is not exclusive but inclusive; 
for the benefit, not of the few, but of 
the many ; not for selfish ease, but for 



MISSION AND FAILURE OF THE HEBREWS 55 



strenuous service. There are elect stars. 
9lect tribes of animals, elect flowers and 
fruit, elect races, and elect souls. " One 
star differ eth from another star in 
glory." But these special endowments 
are intended to qualify them for ampler 
and wider service to the whole universe, 
that the sum-total of good and happiness 
may be increased. Israel was elect, not 
for themselves, nor for the sake of their 
future, but for the service which they 
were to be called upon to render to the 
whole race of man. 

Let us view their special advantages in 
the light of such an election. Theirs was 
the adoption. Israel was God's first- 
born. " Thou shalt say unto Pharaoh, 
Israel is My son, My first-born ; and I 
have said unto thee, Let My son go, that 
he may serve Me." But why this 
selection of Israel for so high an honour, 
except that out of the chosen race He 
should be born, Who was of the seed of 
David, according to the flesh, but was 



56 THE WIDENESS OF GOD'S MERCY 

declared to be the Bon of God with 
power, by the resurrection from among 
the dead, even Jesus Christ our Lord ; 
that through Him we might all receive 
the adoption of sons, and that the whole 
race might be delivered from the bond- 
age of corruption into the glorious liberty 
of the sons of God. 

Theirs was the glory. The Shekinah 
burnt in the acacia-bush of the wilder- 
ness before the awestruck eyes of Moses, 
flamed at night from the pillar of cloud, 
like the watch-fires of the sentry-hosts of 
angels ; and successively filled the desert 
tabernacle and the noble Temple. "It 
came even to pass, when the trumpeters 
and singers were as one, to make one 
sound to be heard in praising and 
thanking the Lord, and when they lifted 
up their voice with the cymbals and 
trumpets and instruments of music, and 
praised the Lord, saying, ' For He is 
good, for His mercy endureth for ever/ 
that then the House was filled with a 



MISSION AND FAILURE OF THE HEBREWS 57 

cloud, even the House of the Lord, so 
that the priests could not stand to 
minister by reason of the cloud, for 
the glory of the Lord filled the House 
of God.' 5 

But why this Shekinah glory, except 
that they might shed light on those who 
sat in darkness and the shadow of 
death? The Holy City was bidden to 
arise and shine, that nations might 
come to her light, and kings to the 
brightness of her rising. 

Theirs tvere the covenants. The 
covenant of Sinai was made with them, 
that they should be named priests of 
the Lord, and that men should call 
them ministers of our God; and when 
they continued not _An* tkat covenant, 
God made with tl^pWSg^ther, which 
we know best in the words of our Lord 
as " the new covenant." 

But clearly this new covenant was 
not exclusively for them, but through 
tbem for us all. They that are of the 



58 THE WIDENBSS OF GOD'S MERCY 



taith of Abraham are blessed with him. 
All the promises made to the Seed 
are ours in Christ. In our minds, and 
on our hearts God will write His law; 
to us He will be a God, and we may 
be His people ; He will be merciful to 
our iniquities, and oar sins and iniquities 
He will remember no more. 

Theirs was the giving of the law. And 
the object was that its blessings might 
be universally distributed. It has been 
justly said that their sacred poets and 
minstrels have furnished the bridal 
hymns, the battle songs, the pilgrim 
marches, the penitential prayers, and 
the public praises of every nation in 
Christendom since Christendom was 
born. Their prophets and seers have 
beheld visions of the Glorious Goal to 
which the whole creation is slowly 
moving, which have stimulated and sus- 
tained the hopes of our race in its 
pilgrim march. Their sacred books have 
passed into the heart and speech ol 



aTISSION and failure of the hebkews 59 

mankind ; and their sufferings are a 
warning of the fate which must over- 
take all who refuse their high vocation, 
betray their sacred trust, and treat 
their election as a matter of private 
advantage. 

Abraham was blessed that he might 
be a blessing, and this was intended to 
be the characteristic of his progeny. 
Not for their comfort or pride, but for 
the sake of the light they were to kindle 
and the iife they were to inspire, were 
they raised to be the spiritual aristocracy 
of the race. As the ganglions of the 
brain which generate the nerve-force of 
the body, not for their own behoof, but 
for the right ordering of the entire 
organism, so were the Hebrew people 
intended to be the nerve centres of the 
world. But when they refused, when 
they shut themselves up in haughty 
exclusiveness, branding the Samaritan 
as a pariah and the Gentile as a dog, 
and when even the Pharisees viewed the 



60 THE WIDENESS OF GOD'S MERCY 

unlettered populace of their own race as 
accursed, the time was ripe for the 
watchers in the Temple to hear the 
rustling of wings and the utterance of 
mysterious voices, saying, "Let us 
depart." The purpose for which the 
Hebrew race had been chosen had been 
frustrated, and there was no alternative 
than to cast them on the dust-heap of 
the world. 

The fatal lack of Judaism. Judaism 
which w 7 as represented by men like 
G-amaliel, at whose feet Paul had been 
educated, represented a very distinct 
advance of religious thought on the 
conclusions of Natural Eeligion. 

They believed in the unity and 
spirituality of God. That God was One 
and that He was a Spirit, had been 
burnt into their hearts during long and 
bitter sufferings. They believed that God 
was the Creator, and therefore greater 
than His works ; Infinite, and therefore 
greater than any Temple made by hands* 



MISSION AND FAILURE OF THE HEBREWS 61 

He was the All-Giver, and therefore 
needed nothing from men, because He 
gave to all life, and breath, and all 
things. There was no danger of 
Pantheism for the Hebrew, because He 
felt that God was Transcendent as well 
as Immanent. Neither was there peril 
of a visionary transcendentalism or 
mysticism, because the Jew felt that he 
lived and moved and had his being in 
the Divine environment. They believed 
in the Divine Forgiveness, though -they 
were not sure of its basis in righteous- 
ness. The sacrifices of innumerable 
victims were still offered in the Temple, 
but those sacrifices were felt to be 
insufficient. They could never, as one 
of the profoundest Jewish thinkers con- 
fessed, " with the same sacrifices, which 
they offered year by year, make perfect 
those who drew nigh." They were not 
perfected in peace, or joy, or confidence, 
else they would have ceased to be offered, 
because the worshippers, having been 



62 THE WIDENESS OF GOD'S MERCY 

once cleansed, would h&ve had no more 
conscience of sins. In those sacrifices, 
therefore, there was only a yearly 
remembrance of sins. In the judgment 
of their theologians and teachers, it was 
impossible that the blood of bulls and 
goats could take away sins. They believed 
also, from the days of the Maccabees, 
with growing clearness of vision, in the 
future state of the resurrection. 

But amid much that was excellent and 
beautiful, of Judaism, as of Gentilism, it 
was true that the fatal lack was of "Power 
unto Salvation." There was not a sufficient 
dynamic. It is true that the Holy Spirit 
had been given to a few of the noblest, 
rarest spirits of their race, to a Samuel, a 
David, an Elijah/an Ezekiel, but for the 
most part the masses of the people were 
unconscious of His Divine energies. 

In Alpine regions the traveller will 
behold wonderful spectacles at early 
dawn. It will seem to him that some 
high angel, having lit his torch at the 



MISSION AND FAILURE OF THE HEBREWS 88 

Eternal Altar, is stepping from summit 
to summit, which had been awaiting his 
advent wrapped in solemn majesty. 
Suddenly one after another begins to 
burn. The snowy summits are steeped 
in fire. They arise and shine, because 
the glory of the Lord has smitten them ; 
but as yet the lower slopes are swathed 
in mist. The valleys resemble vast 
cauldrons in which the clouds are seeth- 
ing, and so it will be for some few hours, 
until the sun can strike with vertical 
rays into their most hidden recesses. 
Then every stick and stone casts a 
shadow. Every valley becomes exalted 
to share the glory which in the earlier 
hours of the day pertained only to the 
highest peaks. Thus it was with the 
Hebrew race. Their prophets and kings 
knew by happy experience the Dynamic 
of the Holy One, but their sons and 
daughters, the servants and handmaids 
knew the Ethic only, and they were 
therefore taught to expect another age 



64 THE WIDENESS OF GOD'S MERCY 

when the Spirit should be poured out 
upon all flesh, when sons and daughters 
should prophesy, when young men 
should see visions and old men dream 
dreams, and when upon servants and 
handmaidens that same Spirit should be 
poured forth. 

The casting -off of the chosen people. 
For want of sufficient dynamic, that 
power unto salvation, that mighty 
quickening Spirit, the Hebrew people 
as a whole lost sight of the higher ideals 
of their race. At the time when the 
Epistle to the Romans was written, they 
had bowed their necks to foreign masters, 
had substituted a lifeless ritualism for vital 
religion, and had become debased enough 
to denounce and reject Him whose holy 
character and merciful ministry marked 
Him as the white flower of their race. 

It is not enough to know, man must 
have power to be and do, or he drifts as 
a doomed vessel to the teeth of the jagged 
rocKs. The awful havoc caused in 



MISSION AND FAILURE OF THE HEBREWS 65 

Judaism by this fatal lack of spiritual 
power is recited by one of the greatest of 
the sons of Israel, in immortal words, and 
we will take them as expressing the lament 
of the purest and noblest spirits of his race 
in that eventful age which culminated in 
the overthrow of Temple and City : 

" The commandment, which was or- 
dained to life, I found to be unto death. 
For sin, taking occasion by the com- 
mandment deceived me, and by it slew 
me. For we know that the law is 
spiritual, but I am carnal, sold under 
sin. For that which I do, I allow not; 
for what I would, that do I not; but 
what I hate, that do I. To will is present 
with me, but how to perform that which 
is good, I find not. For the good that 
I would I do not; but the evil that I 
would not that I do. I delight in the 
law of God after the inward man, but I 
see another law in my members warring 
against the law of my mind, and bring- 
ing me into captivity to the law of sin 
5 



66 THE WIDENESS OF GOD'S MERCY 

which is in my members. wretched 
man that I am, who shall deliver me 
from the body of this death?" 

This is one of the deepest pieces ot 
spiritual experience in the literature of 
the world. It expresses the ultimate 
verdict of the soul on Judaism. Great 
and good as its conceptions of the Divine 
Being and of Duty were, it lacked the 
driving-power, the divine energy, and 
that concord with the Divine nerve-centres 
of the Universe, which was to be supplied 
in the fulness of time. The inability of 
Judaism to meet the ultimate and im- 
perative need of the human soul was a 
mute and eloquent appeal to God to 
hasten the introduction of a new Age, 
when the ancient prayer should be 
realised: "Let Thy hand be upon the Man 
of Thy right hand, and upon the Son of 
Man whom Thou madest strong for 
Thyself, so shall we not go back from 
Thee. Quicken Thou us, and we will 
call upon Thy Name/' 



MISSION AND FAILURE OF THEHEBREWS 67 

It was Paul's lot to live when the 
chosen people were being cast aside, but, 
as Eom. ix. — xi. proves, he saw clearly 
that they would be taken again in hand. 
He saw the Church called to fulfil their 
functions and do their work. Above all 
he saw the perfect flower of the Hebrew 
race in the peerless beauty of the Lord 
of Light and Glory, 



IV 

THE MESSAGE OF THE CHUECH 

4 * Then they that gladly received the Word 
were baptized, and the same day were added 
unto them about three thousand souls. And 
they continued steadfastly in the Apostles' 
teaching and in breaking of bread and in 
prayers." — Acts ii. 41, &c. 

Looking back over the intervening 
valley of some thirty years, Luke 
described the infancy of the Church, 
which at the time in which he wrote was 
entering upon her death grapple with 
Paganism. The brightness and glory 
of her dawn had somewhat faded from 
the sky. Her simplicity, unity, and 
family life were not now preserved in 
their pristine integrity. Persecution had 
broken the regular formation of the 
early Church. Luke himself, the com- 
panion of St. Paul, had become familiar 
with scenes of imprisonment and suffer- 



THE MESSAGE OF THE CHURCH 69 

ing, and looking back over the range of 
thirty years, lingered on this portrayal 
of the first glad days when the Church 
of Christ emerged from the upper room, 
and took its place amid the forces which 
strove for the mastery of the world. 

The Church was born on the morning 
of Eesurrection. The materials of which 
she was composed had probably been 
prepared beforehand, but the Church 
itself dates from that hour when, like 
Eve, she was taken from the second 
Adam while he slept. Now for the first 
time she appeared before men as a 
regularly constituted organism, and was 
thenceforth to play a wonderful part 
in the history of the race, as the residence 
and implement of the Holy Spirit, and 
for bringing in that new Kingdom of 
righteousness — the new heavens and 
earth with which creation travails. 

It is easy to discern the bright and 
beautiful freshness of that dawn. The 
dew was on the grass, the breath of 



70 THE WIDENESS OF GOD'S MERCY 

morning air fanned every face, the carol 
of the birds of hope was in the trees ; 
it was the dawn of a new society, with 
all the joy and gladness with which a 
new beginning, and especially a new re- 
ligious beginning, stirs the heart of man. 

Note that there were new teachers, 
new methods of worshiping God, a new 
constitution of society, new signs of 
power, and new joy and hope. 

First, there were new teachers. " They 
continued steadfastly in the Apostles' 
teaching and fellowship." Who were 
they ? Might they be saluted as 
"Babbi"? Had they any right to the 
deep and broad phylactery ? Were they 
recognised amongst the priests and 
teachers of Jerusalem ? Were they 
Levites or Scribes ? Certainly not. 
They were unlettered men. Their brogue 
betrayed their provincial origin. There 
was not one of them who had ever at- 
tended the School of Gamaliel, or sat at 
the feet of the great Hebrew Professors. 



THE MESSAGE OF THE CHURCH 71 

Up till then they had been artisans, 
fishermen, simple and very ordinary 
people ; some had forsaken their Master 
in the hour of trial, and none seemed to 
have capacity to understand the mar- 
vellous scope of His purpose ; yet these 
men were suddenly uplifted to the posi- 
tion of teaching thousands of new-born 
converts who apparently gave the go-by 
to priests, teachers, and learned Eabbis, 
and sat and listened to the words of fire 
and wisdom which proceeded from these 
untutored lips. 

It was a great wonder that such men 
should suddenly, in a single day, step 
out of the ranks of ordinary life to 
become the teachers of the Church. 
Nothing can account for it except that 
qualities are bestowed upon them by the 
direct afflatus of the Holy Spirit, enabling 
them not only to address vast crowds of 
people, but to build up the believers who 
steadfastly attended their ministry. 

Note what that teaching must have 



72 THE WLDENESS OF GOD'S MERCY 

meant. First, that Jesus Christ had 
fulfilled the Old Testament predictions, 
and secondly, that He had left a variety 
of instructions and ordinances for the 
guidance of His people. We can imagine 
those three thousand souls, gathering in 
the Temple courts day by day because 
no other place could hold them, or it 
may be finding their way to some seques- 
tered nook on Olivet, whilst Peter, John 
or James would explain the Old Testament 
Scripture in the light of the Saviour's 
words. I think that that lost Gospel, 
which evidently underlies the three 
synoptic Gospels, possibly emerged then 
and was reiterated again and again to the 
people, as the Apostles told of all that 
Jesus had said and done. 

Were men groping and feeling after 
God ? They said that Christ had revealed 
Him. Were men longing to know God ? 
They taught that He who had spoken 
in divers manners and ways by the 
prophets had now spoken in these last 



THE MESSAGE OF THE CHURCH 73 

days in His Son. Did they want to know 
how their sins might be forgiven con- 
sistently with righteousness ? They were 
now informed that God had set Him 
forth as the Propitiation for the sins of 
the world. All this and much more was 
poured forth in burning eloquence upon 
the crowds, as they gathered day by day, 
until a great basis of Christian doctrine 
was laid, upon which presently the 
Church was to arise. 

Second, there were new methods oj 
worship. It is quite clear that they did not 
forsake the Temple, sacred with so many 
memories. "Why should they? They 
believed all that the rest of the nation 
believed, with one thing more, which 
made all the difference, that Jesus Christ 
was the long-expected Messiah. And 
there is every evidence that for forty 
years, until Jerusalem fell, the Christian 
Church was more or less imbued with 
reverence and veneration for the ancient 
forms of worship. " They were daily in 



74 THE WIPENESS OF GOD** MERCY 

the Temple" ; and it must have be- 
very remarkable sight to have beheld 

that great congregation o: three thousand 
me:: a::". - :me:: ■• : .l i :.: ::::: the miast 
: : the :Ie::se masses ~"h: were accustome :1 
to assemb - :'.:ere. Bar in additioo to 

:"::a . — aa'haae a: :he Temple ser- 

vice. :'::ey ;:..:::-: :he ri:e :■: Baptism. 
which v :: ---r-v ass : ::a:ea ~i:h the 
ministry ;: the Fireranner, :h::mh now 

ficance; thev practised also the breaking 

.5 at man: thev --: ah! aathc: 
in some common meeting-place, like the 
upper room, or perhaps from house :: 
house, those who were rich and had 
spacious apartments wek ming the rest. 
There the wine was poured out, and the 
bread broken, and thus the Church 
deserved each the L::ahs >:tm: 

as it had come fresh from the hands 
of the Master. By observing it, they 
held trllowship with E:m Whc lnseei 
presided attne least, an a yiehiedHis Body 



THE MESSAGE OF THE CHURCH 75 

and Blood for their hunger and thirst. 
In addition to the ordinances of Baptism 
and the Lord's Supper, there are evi- 
dently traces of the establishment of 
special meetings for prayer. We are 
told, " They continued in the Apostles' 
teaching and fellowship, in breaking of 
bread, and in prayers," so that our 
prayer meetings are in direct descent 
from that Pentecostal time, when, for 
the first time in the history of the 
Church, untutored, unlettered, and illite- 
rate men and women were accustomed to 
break forth in prayer to the Bisen Lord. 
Third, there were new conceptions of a 
Religious Society. It was modelled on 
that of a family, of a home. And a very 
beautiful conception it was, which arose 
so naturally out of our Saviour's own 
example, for you will remember that our 
Lord's work was pre-eminently a social 
one. Directly he had left His mother's 
home, He began to gather disciples around 
Him, and all through those three years 



76 THE WIDENESS OF GOD'S MERCY 

by the seaside, in the boat, on the moun- 
tain, in the city, and amongst the villages, 
Hq was always one of a society. Jesus 
Christ founded the Christian Community 
or Society, which we know as the Church, 
and inaugurated it as a family. Disciples 
lived together, they were taught to con- 
sider and minister tenderly to each 
other, there would be all the give and 
take of a family ; and it was in this con- 
tact with Himself and with each other that 
the first apostles were moulded. Towards 
the close of our Lord's ministry, holy 
women were allowed to gather with them 
and to minister to their need. In the 
upper room the Church was cradled, and 
so, when three thousand souls were added 
it was only necessary to push back the 
family barriers to include them. But they 
were all brothers and sisters, and gathered 
in fellowship with their unseen Head. 

We must notice the Church's unity 
and community of goods. 

(1) Her unity. The Church of Eome 



THE MESSAGE OF THE CHURCH 77 

has always dreamt of a vast uniformity 
when all men shall worship in the same 
posture, hold the same creed, obey the 
dictates of one supreme head, the Pope; 
but it has been shown through the history 
of Europe and the world, that such 
uniformity can only be achieved at the 
sacrifice of life. When you attempt to 
press men into one bond and compact, 
or into the same mould, you kill the 
individuality of the living soul ; and so 
when the Eeformation burst upon Europe, 
the whole continent lay in a profound 
sleep of death, on which Luther broke 
with bis clarion note of freedom. But 
that dream must pass. Uniformity was 
never Christ's ideal, but the unity in 
which variety gives charm, and supplies 
the need and lack of each and all. Take 
the family — how interesting its variety 
— the boys and girls, the elder ones and 
the little children, and how each supplies 
what the other lacks, so that all its mem- 
bers stand together as a whole, Happy 



78 THE WIDENESS OF GOD'S MERCY 

is the family-group which is large enough 
to allow of that charming variety, which 
is pervaded and knit together by a 
common spirit of unity. That was 
Christ's conception, the unity of the 
family with variety in its members. 
The Bible is one, though its authors 
and styles are so different ; the body is 
one,. though its members are so various; 
and the Church is one, though with 
an infinite variety of disposition and 
temperament; therefore there need be no 
foothold for jealousy or rivalry. 

(2) There was a community of goods. 
The distribution of property was not 
compulsory, but each disciple did it 
voluntarily, and as the natural thing. 
There were the Apostles to be main- 
tained, the wealthy and aged to be cared 
for, the women and children to be pro- 
vided for; many of the disciples had come 
from all parts of the world, and before 
they returned home needed to spend 
some months under the Apostles' teach- 



THE MESSAGE OF THE CHURCH 79 

ing and direction ; and therefore as a 
matter of free-will, because there must 
be no lack, the richer members, like 
Nicodemus, Joseph of Arimathsea, Mary, 
and others were glad to dispose of their 
property in order that they might 
minister with a loving hand to the needs 
of their fellow-disciples. But this volun- 
tary community of goods was as far as 
possible removed from Communism, or 
from those advanced forms of Socialism 
which desire to secure equality by com- 
pulsion. There is all the difference in 
the world between a man saying "You 
shall be equalised down to me " and the 
man who is prepared, if he stands on a 
higher level, to lift others to an equality 
with himself by his own free choice. 

Fourth, there was a new sense of power. 
Just then the Eoman Empire was begin- 
ing to be paralysed. It seemed as though 
the supplies of virile energy proceeding 
from the human mind and soul were 
commencing to dry up, and at that very 



80 THE WIDBNESS OF GOD'S MERCY 

moment there burst upon the world a 
new conception of a power which lay 
beyond the reach of the human soul in 
the living God, and which was to be 
received day by day by faith. "Ye shall 
receive power," said Christ, and they 
received so much that there was an over- 
flowing exuberance. N It seemed as though 
the early confessors and martyrs could 
not find sacrifices hard enough to show 
how much power they possessed. The 
Holy Spirit, who had been before an 
atmosphere, had now become a Person : 
He was no longer the God of the hills 
alone but of the valleys also; He was 
not only outside the believer, but in him 
as a spring that rose to everlasting life; 
He not only enabled the greatest saints 
to do their mightiest deeds, but came 
upon handmaidens and children, upon 
young and old, and empowered them, 
so that all life became renewed because 
of the energy and vigour which flowed 
from the Living Head. 



THE MESSAGE OF THE CHURCH 81 



This after all is the greatest gift of 
Christ. " It pleased the Father that in 
Him should all the fulness dwell." When 
He ascended up on high, leading captivity 
captive, and entered the Father's pre- 
sence, He asked no boon for Himself, 
but that the Holy Spirit who had been 
one with Him from all eternity should 
now dwell in His risen and ascended 
body in all the fulness of Deity. Did 
He not say, " I will pray the Father for 
you"? and did not Peter in his Pente- 
costal sermon tell us that He had 
received of the Father the promise of the 
Spirit which He shed forth ? We must 
believe therefore that in the Divine- 
human nature of Christ, ascended to 
the right hand of power, the Holy Spirit 
dwells, that He may be communicated 
to all those who are in living union 
with Christ as the sap flows from the 
roots to the furthest branches, and as 
the blood is driven from the heart to the 
extremities of the body. There is a 
6 



82 THE WIDENESS OF GOD'S MERCY 

reservoir of power in the Son of God on 
which the whole Church has a right to 
lay claim, and if there is nothing between 
a man's soul and the Living Christ, 
moment by moment there comes the 
sensible inflow of Divine energy which 
nourishes the incorruptible seed of the 
Christ -germ, sown in every regenerate 
nature. In the power of that life we no 
longer strive against our sins and failures 
as a Stoic might, but receive a direct 
impartation of the Divine nature which 
lifts us above their tyranny. It was 
with this sense of power that the Church 
broke upon the world. The moan of the 
soul, "What I would, I do not," became 
transformed into the rapturous outburst, 
" I can do all things through Christ who 
strengthened me." 

Fifth, there was a new joy and gladness. 
Dean Stanley records the deep impres- 
sion that was made on him by the verse, 
" They did eat their meat with gladness 
and singleness of heart," and from those 



THE MESSAGE OF THE CHURCH 83 

words he deduces the fact of the primitive 
Christian joy. Theirs was the gladness 
of young life as we meet it in our 
nurseries or the pasture-lands. It was 
the gladness which comes from single- 
ness of heart ; they were animated by a 
transparent simplicity and sincerity of 
motive. It is the single eye which is 
full of light ; it is the heart with the 
undivided purpose which is truly happy. 
It is because we are divided over so many 
interests that we are so distracted with 
care. They lived by the day. " Continuing 
daily." Instead of worrying about what 
the future might bring, they lived in the 
present tense, always the secret of 
happiness. There was the communication 
of a new hope. They heard the music 
of the angels, as John heard it in the 
Apocalypse, ringing beneath the war 
and strife of the world. That is a 
beautiful story of the boy who heard the 
music of the bells, saying, "Turn again." 
Beneath all the noise of London he could 



84 THE WIDENESS OF GOD'S MERCY 

detect the minstrels of hope predicting 
that if he turned again he would ascend 
to the magistracy of the great city. And 
the early Church heard the music of the 
bells of heaven, as they rang out that 
all were going to turn again, that God 
was going to bring about the restitution 
of all things, and that the world was 
finally to return to the golden age, the 
summer of existence. There icas the joy 
of constant fresh accessions. " The Lord 
added to them day by day those who were 
being saved." " My brother has come, 
my sister is coming, my old father and 
mother have come, my work-people are 
being saved." The body of three 
thousand was always swelling ; new 
voices saying, "He has saved me;" 
new faces lit up and wreathed in smiles 
and tears ; new lives transformed. Oh, 
cannot you imagine those daily additions, 
the throng in the midst of the Temple 
courts growing and growing as new con- 
verts gathered ? Those of us who have 



THE MESSAGE OF THE CHURCH 85 

gone through revival times ; those who 
have seen fathers weeping over their 
prodigal children ; those who have seen 
mothers, the Monicas who have prayed 
and wept for their Augustines, can 
tell something of the unearthly, heavenly 
joy with which those happy faces shone. 
What an exquisite citation Dr. Eendel 
Harris made recently from his own 
translation of the Apology of Aristides, 
as a picture of primitive Christian life. 
" If any righteous person of their number 
passes away from the world, they 
rejoice and give thanks to God, and 
they follow his body as if he were 
moving from one place to another ; and 
when a child is born to any of them 
they praise God, and again if it chances 
to die in its infancy they praise God 
mightily as for one who has passed from 
the world without sins ; and if again 
they see that one of their number has 
died in his iniquity and in his sins, over 
this one they weep bitterly and sigh as 



86 THE WIDBNESS OF GOD'S MERCY 

over one who is about to go to punish- 
ment." Well may he add, "How con- 
tagious must their happiness have been 
when it dared to make laws to death, and 
refused to let him cast a gloom over the 
Christian's buriaL ,, In Christianity a 
man not only escapes from the horrible 
pit, but sings a new song on its margin, 
and no exiles that ever returned from 
the land of captivity could say more 
truthfully, " Our mouth is filled with 
laughter, and our tongue with singing." 
Oh beautiful infancy ! Oh golden age ! 
Oh radiant dawn ! Oh morning without 
clouds ! Oh bright and beautiful inaugu- 
ration of the new age ! Would that it 
had been perpetuated always ! May we 
live to see it come again ! May we see a 
good deal of the present misunderstand- 
ing removed, and pray that in our day 
the one Church of God may come 
back to the family life, and again typify 
to mankind the glorious Bride of the 
Son of Man. 



THE UNSAVED SAVIOUR 

" Save Thyself." " He saved others ; Himself 
He cannot save." — Matt, xxvii. 40, 42. 

Our Lord probably stood for the first 
time before Pilate at six in the morning, 
and the final order to lead Him to the 
Cross would have been about eight. 
The scourging must have taken some 
twenty minutes, so that it would be 
about 8.30 on the day of the Crucifixion 
when the procession left the Hall of 
Pilate. An entire cohort of soldiers was 
probably set apart for the closing tragedy 
of His life, four of them being detailed 
to accompany Him, and four to guard 
each of the malefactors that followed Him. 
The centurion of the whole company 
generally preceded the cohort. It is 
not difficult to imagine that procession 
along the " Via Dolorosa/' as it is called 



88 THE WIDENESS OF GOD S MERCY 

— the centurion first, on each side a line 
of soldiers in single file, in the centre the 
three who were to be crucified. It was 
a holiday — the shops were all closed, and 
from every street the crowds poured 
until they stood in one vast concourse to 
watch the procession, for Jesus was well 
known. The details of His life had 
been carefully followed, and many were 
under a deep debt of obligation, and 
desired to see Him for the last time. 

He had not been refreshed by sleep, 
had taken no nourishment since the 
Paschal meal, had passed through 
paroxysms of emotion and conflict in the 
meantime, had experienced the bitterness 
of scourging and mocking. We cannot, 
therefore, wonder that His emaciated 
body, worn and wan, sank beneath the 
Cross, eliciting from the women of 
Jerusalem groans and tears of pity as 
they wept for Him. A countryman who 
happened to be passing by, and whose 
appearance indicated that he was not a 



THE UNSAVED SAVIOUR 89 

citizen of Jerusalem, Simon of Cyrene, 
was arrested, and compelled to bear the 
Cross ; and there are words that seem to 
suggest that our Lord was almost carried 
in a fainting condition for the remainder 
of the way. 

The procession descended into the 
most busy and crowded thoroughfare of 
the whole city, and so out, through the 
northern gate, to a place which by its 
configuration approached as nearly as 
possible to the likeness of a skull — as we 
speak of the brow of a hill, so they spoke 
of the place as Golgotha, the skull of the 
mount — and there they crucified Him. 

The details of that crucifixion are 
indescribably harrowing ; and although 
none of us ought to shrink from reading 
them, yet it is a comfort to realise that, 
after all, the effect of our Saviour's death 
upon us is not primarily intended to be 
an emotional one, but to touch the will, 
purpose, and determination of our life. 

The description of that terrible scene, 



90 THE WIDENESS OF GOD ? S MERCY 

when the hands and feet were nailed by 
the sharp spikes, and the Cross raised 
with its dependent body until it reached 
the required elevation, with the weight 
of the body thrown largely on the hands 
and feet, might excite our tears and lead 
to profoundest emotion, and yet we might 
go forth to crucify Him afresh. There- 
fore, it seems better not to deal with the 
emotional, nor detail the various items 
of anguish and shame to which the 
Master was exposed, but to resolve with 
the Apostle that from henceforth we also 
will go forth unto Him, bearing His 
reproach, that we may be crucified with 
Him, and that through His death for us, 
in which we also are called to participate, 
we may pass into the Easter morning, 
and presently help to save a dying 
world. 

When finally the Cross was set up, and 
the awful tragedy began, it would seem 
that there was let loose amid the crowd 
that gathered around an unholy ribaldry, 



THE UNSAVED SAVIOUR 91 

for which surely malicious spirits must 
have been responsible. For the most 
part, a death scene will elicit from the 
most hardened the sob of awe, pity, and 
deep emotion; but neither reverence, 
emotion, nor awe had any place in that 
scene. The soldiers mocked Him as 
they quaffed His health in their light 
wine, and said : "If Thou be the King 
of the Jews, as the proclamation above 
Thee indicates, then save Thyself." The 
malefactors, in easy speaking distance on 
right and left, said the same thing : " If 
Thou be the Christ, save Thyself." 
Presently, the men and women that 
walked to and fro, mocking Him and 
shaking their heads in scorn, took up 
words which- they had heard from His 
lips long before, and maybe had often 
pondered : " Thou that destroyest the 
Temple, save Thyself, and come down 
from the Cross." Even the Sanhedrists 
themselves, priests some of them, fathers, 
the grey-headed leaders of the people, did 



92 THE WIDENESS OF GOD's MERCY 

not think it beneath their dignity to cast 
the same in His teeth as they said : "If 
Thou art the King of Israel, come down 
from the Cross, and we will believe 
in Thee." From the soldiers, from the 
dying malefactors, from the people as 
they went to and fro, and from the 
Sanhedrin itself — from all their lips, iu 
one vociferating chorus, these words 
were poured upon the ears of Christ — 
" Save Thyself, come down from the 
Cross." And when He maintained an 
absolute silence — the silence of power, 
the silence of conscious dignity, the 
silence of one who was going through 
too great an ordeal to return reply — when 
He remained absolutely silent and trans- 
fixed, they concluded that He who had 
saved others could not save Himself. 
They never uttered a more absolute 
truth, for Jesus could not save Himself, 
not because of the nails that pierced 
Him, not because of the cohort that 
crucified Him, but because He was a 



THE UNSAVED SAVIOUR 93 

voluntary sufferer, who was nailed to 
that Cross by an inflexible resolve that 
He would save the world by the sacrifice 
of Himself. He saved others, of course 
He could not save Himself; and it is 
because He refused to come down 
from the Cross that the world believes. 

You will notice that He could not save 
Himself for three reasons: First, He 
ould not save Himself because He was 
determined to fulfil the will of God. 
Second, He could not save Himself 
because only in self-giving could He save 
mankind. Third, He could not save 
Himself because only through death 
could He destroy him that had the power 
of death, and there was no other path by 
which He could become the High Priest 
of men. 

1. He could not save Himself because 
He had elected to do the will of God. He 
had the power. The power which had 
thrown the squadron of soldiers on their 
backs in the garden of Gethsemane, the 



94 THE WIDENESS OF GOD'S MERCY 

power which could call for twelve legions 
of angels, the power that healed the ear 
of Malchus— all that power was resident 
in Hiro, and at any moment He could 
have stepped down from the Cross. 
Leaving His Father's presence in the 
eternal world, His last word had been, 
" In the volume of the book it is written 
of Me, I delight to do Thy will, My 
God." With that purpose in His mind, 
He had stooped to become the babe in 
Mary's arms, to grow up in the obscurity 
of Nazareth, to descend into the waters 
of the Jordan, to traverse three years of 
constant hardship and sorrow, until He 
had reached the point in His life at which 
He seemed to stand absolutely alone in 
an awful solitude ; but He had never 
diverged from the plan of the Father's 
will. He had built everything upon the 
pattern shown Him on the Mount ; and 
even in the Garden, when the pressure of 
His own will had reached its highest, He 
immediately quenched it. As a child 



THE UNSAVED SAVIOUR 95 

weaned from his mother's breast, so He 
quieted and calmed Himself, and said, "I 
delight to do Thy will, My God." It 
was because that will led, as of old the 
Shekinah cloud, to the Cross standing 
upon Golgotha, that He would not turn a 
hairs-breadth to the right or the left. 
He could not save Himself if He would 
do God's will. 

Our Lord was pinioned to the Cross by 
a supreme devotion to the Divine purpose. 
It is permissible to the missionary, 
pursued by violence, to escape if he can, 
that under happier conditions he may 
continue his life-work ; but it was not 
permissible for the Eedeemer to avoid 
the sentence of death. From the first 
He knew that He must be " lifted up." 
All through His career, when voices of 
prudence prompted Him to save Himself, 
He refused. It was only by death that 
He could effectually seal His testimony 
for righteousness, and stamp His words 
with the mint-mark of eternal truth 



96 THE WIDENESS OF GOD'S MERCY 

besides fulfilling the ancient prophecies, 
revealing the infinite love of God, and 
finishing the salvation of men. 

It has sometimes seemed to me that 
this is the explanation of the anguish of 
Gethsemane. Our Lord was only thirty- 
three. Life was still strong within Him. 
Using His own comparison, He was a 
fir-tree in the forest glade, in the prime 
of its strength. It was only natural 
that He should desire — speaking of Him 
according to His humanity— to live 
longer, utter His wonderful words, and 
do deeds as startling as the raising of 
Lazarus. Surely these would have 
arrested Jerusalem from her headlong 
downward career ; surely there would 
have been a hope that the fate which was 
impending over the city might be averted ; 
but it was as though the Father said to 
Him, " This is not the appointed way ; 
only through death can the full purpose 
of Thy life be fulfilled," and therefore 
resisting the clinging love of life, He 



THE UNSAVED SAVIOUR 97 



turned resolutely to follow the dark 
cypress-lined and rugged path that led 
to Calvary. 

It is a great moment in life when the 
soul deliberately determines that the 
will of God shall be its supreme rule ; 
that it will never knowingly do any- 
thing outside the limits of that will, and 
that so far as possible it will realise all 
that is contained within it. The moment 
when the soul resolves upon this may 
be described as the inauguration of a life 
of consecration. Then we say, as the 
Lord said, "For their sakes I consecrate 
Myself, that they also may be conse- 
crated through the truth." Then, also, 
we may say with the prophet, " The 
Lord God hath opened my ear, and I 
was not rebellious, neither turned away 
backward. I gave my back to the smiters, 
and my cheeks to them that plucked off 
the hair. I hid not my face from shame 
and spitting." The opened ear may refer 
either to the boring of the ear to the 
7 



98 THE WIDENESS OF GOD'S MERCY 

doorpost of the house in which the 
peasant had found shelter and food 
(Exodus xxi. 6; Psalm xl. 6), or it may 
refer to the putting back of the long 
or bushy hair which covered the ear, 
that nothing might intercept the least 
whisper of the speaker's voice ; but in 
either case it sets forth that life of 
entire devotion to the will of God of 
which Samuel is a prime example, the 
chord of whose life was struck in that 
earliest utterance, " Speak, Lord, for 
Thy servant heareth." 

It is quite certain that a resolve of 
that sort will bring us, as it brought 
Him, to the Cross ; we cannot save our- 
selves if we have made up our mind to 
do the will of God ; but probably we 
shall never know the blessedness of life 
until we drink of His cup, and are 
baptized with His baptism, and pass 
through union with His Cross into union 
with Him in His Eesurrection. " Except 
a corn of wheat fall into the ground and 



THE UNSAVED SAVIOUR 99 

die, it abideth alone, but if it die it bringeth 
forth much fruit." 

2. He could not save Himself for it was 
only in self-giving that He could save. 
That is one of the deepest laws of human 
love. If it be asked what she shall do 
to save her child, a mother will gladly give 
herself to vigil by night and self-denial 
by day. The patriot will give himself 
for his country, and be proud to do it ; 
and no man is ever likely to save 
humanity until he will give himself to 
tears and blood for men. This is a law 
deep as the nature of God. Would you 
make the impure pure ? You mast save 
yourself from impurity. Would you save 
men from selfishness ? You must be 
saved from the self-taint. Would you 
give life? You must be prepared to 
sacrifice your own. 

When the daughters of Jerusalem 
wept for Him, He said, " Do not weep 
for Me," and put away their sympathy 
from Him. When He came to the Cross, 



100 THE WIDENES5 OF GOD'S MERCY 

and they offered Him the stupefying 
draught. He refused to drink it, as though 
He said. ,; I must suffer with a clear 
mind, ti: : I ::::/" - . - to prove the 
power o: <-;;! to the .-."ermis:." He 
seemed to forget Himself absolutely as 
He cried. ;i Father, forgive them; they 
know not what they do.'' And when 
the dying thie: asked :o be remembered. 
He replied. " Rem- ._'_ rr thee! I will 
do much more than that, for thou shalt 
be with Me to-day in Paradise." When 
John came within speaking distance of 
the Cross with Mary and the rest., as He 
beheld them., again He forgot Hiroseif 
entirely, and only asked that John 
should take His mother to his home. 
When He entered the three hours of 
darkness, even then He thought not 
of Himself., for He said, "'My blood is 
shed for many for the remission of sins." 
The only expression suggestive of self 
during those six hours of anguish was 
that cry, "I thirst;" but even that 



THE UNSAVED SAVIOUR 101 

seems to have been absolutely unselfish, 
when we remember that probably He 
found His strength was ebbing so fast 
as to suggest the fear lest He would pass 
away from this world in a state of coma, 
and He desired to meet death face to 
face. Therefore He said in effect, " Give 
Me something to support Me in this 
terrible exhaustion, that for the next 
few minutes I may be able buoyantly 
and intelligently to pursue My purpose 
to the end." 

It may be asked, In what way has 
Christ's self-giving availed to help men ? 
When it is said " He gave Himself a 
ransom for all," what does it exactly 
mean ? We must never think that our 
Lord stepped in to appease the otherwise 
implacable wrath of the Father. Too 
often the work of the Cross has been so 
explained as to suggest that the Father 
was full of vengeance, and that His 
gentler Son stepped in, and stood 
between Him and man, intercepting 



108 THE WTDENESS OF OOD's MERC! 

;he blow which wise must h 

ended -, Too o 

the illustration has been used of the 
master in a school punishing a good boy 
for a bad one. lis is an inadequate 

onscriptoral method of explaining 
the stupendous significance :: that work 
performed amid blood and tears, dark- 
ness and forsakenness, of which Jesus 
saidj "It is rinisht We must never 

forget I ::: way in which the 

Apos:ie says :ha: " God was in Ch 
reconciling the world unto Himself.*' 
Whatever our Lord did was the expres- 
sion of the Father's self-giving. The true 
illustration., therefore, is not that 01 
teacher punishing a good boy for an evil. 
but of a father taking upon himself the 
indebtedness, disgrace, and penalty which 
some child might have incurred, that by 
bearing these he might put the conse- 
quences of the sin away. Before God's love 
to men, which had been from eternity, 
could flow freely out to save, it was 



THE UNSAVED SAVIOUR 103 

necessary that some claim of righteous- 
ness should be met, which we may not be 
able fully to understand in our present 
life, and it was only when this had been 
adequately satisfied that God's tender and 
compassionate pity could have free course 
and be glorified in seeking and saving 
men. He is just, and the justifier. 

This, at least, we must never forget, 
that whatever was done on the Cross 
was done for the whole race. " The 
Lamb of God beareth away the sin of 
the world" "He is the propitiation, 
not for our sins only, but for the sins of 
the whole world. 9 ' "He has put away 
sin by the sacrifice of Himself/ ' What- 
ever penalty accrued to men as members 
of a fallen family has been cancelled 
by the Second Adam, the Lord from 
Heaven. This is a redeemed world, 
and if men are lost, it is not because 
of sins committed by their ancestors or 
themselves, but because by rebellion, 
negligence, and the refusal to accept 



104 THE WIDENESS OF GOD*S MERCY 

such truth as was within their reach, 
they have shut themselves away from 
God's redeeming love and mercy. We 
can never meet a man, therefore, for 
whom Christ did not die, who was not 
included in the work of the Cross, whose 
sin was not borne in Christ's body on the 
tree. Men may know nothing of our 
Lord's work on their behalf ; they may 
only exercise faith, as we have said, in 
that revelation of the truth, more or 
less, which has been made to them; 
but on the ground of that faith, 
righteousness is imputed to them, and 
they are treated as if their faith had 
embraced some fuller revelation of 
Divine truth. As soon as their eyes are 
opened to understand their true position, 
it will become manifest to them that 
God was able to deal with them on 
terms of grace because on the " green 
hill far away, without the city wall," in 
the person of Jesus of Nazareth, He 
took upon Himself the shame and 



THE UNSAVED SAVIOUR 105 

sorrow and burden of a world's indebted- 
ness, and met it. This is a great 
mystery, but it is the one clue to the 
justifying righteousness of God, which is 
unto all who do not refuse it. 

3. He could not save Himself, because 
only in death could He deliver those who 
through fear of death were subject to bond- 
age. Only in death could its sting be ex- 
tracted, and the grave deprived of victory. 
Therefore He must go through it, that 
none of us need ever know the bitterness 
of death, but might have an abundant 
entrance into the Kingdom of God. 

He could not save Himself from death, 
because away beyond the confines of 
this world He saw the throng of angels 
gazing intently upon that last passage, 
and beckoning Him to His throne, and 
there was only one way by which that 
throne could be reached. He saw also 
the myriads of souls who had been 
saved through previous ages, in antici- 
pation of His death, and who were 



106 THE WIDENESS OF GOD'S MERCY 

waiting to receive the assurance that 
their deliverance was perfected ; and He 
looked forward to the millions who in 
coming time would be helped and 
comforted from the throne of His High- 
Priestly humanity. Do you wonder that, 
when He heard the angel-voices saying, 
"Great King, through this Thou shalt 
come to Thy throne," and heard the 
myriads who had preceded His death 
saying, " Even thus Thou shalt accom- 
plish our redemption," and anticipated 
the millions more who were to be saved 
when He had overcome the sharpness of 
death, and had opened the Kingdom of 
Heaven to all believers, He bowed His 
head to bear the yoke, pour out His life, 
and give Himself a ransom for all ? 

It was with great wonder thafc the 
Apostle Paul contemplated the successive 
stages down which our Lord passed to 
the grave. " Being found in fashion as 
a man, He humbled Himself, and became 
obedient unto death, even the death of 



THE UNSAVED SAVIOUR 107 

the Cross." If death was inevitable, He 
might have died as fades the summer 
cloud away, or as the eye of day closes 
in a soft autumn evening ; He might 
have died in the dear home of Bethany 
with Martha ministering, and Mary 
watching every flicker of His waning 
life. With the window open towards the 
Jerusalem that He loved so well, He 
might have passed into the Eternal City 
to be welcomed as the King of Glory, 
but this would not suffice Him. He 
knew that His martyred disciples would 
tread a rougher pathway, would drink a 
more bitter cup, would be compelled to 
pass through more heart-rending scenes 
of rejection and physical pain, and there- 
fore He set Himself to undergo the most 
shameful and painful death known even 
to the brutal Phoenicians or Eomans. 
" He endured the Cross, despising the 
shame." He has gone along the path 
of suffering and death, which our human 
nature might be expected to shrink from 



108 THE WIDENESS OF GOD'S MERCY 

with the greatest dread, and in going He 
has snapped the twigs of the trees, as 
they do in new countries when they open 
fresh pathways through the forest, for 
those who follow to be assured of the 
track. " Through death He destroyed 
him that had the power of death, and 
delivered those who all their life-time 
were subject to bondage." The weakest 
and most timid of the Lord's disciples 
may now say boldly and fearlessly, " 
death, where is thy sting? grave, 
where is thy victory ? " 

"He saved others, Himself He cannot 
save." A great principle underlies 
these words. Spoken in jest and sar- 
casm, they contain a truth of universal 
application. Men cannot be saved except 
at infinite cost to the Saviour. It is 
impossible to lift men from impurity to 
purity, unless we deny ourselves ungodly 
and worldlv lusts ; to save men from 
selfishness, unless w T e crucify our self- 
life ; or to lift the world to the heart of 



THE UNSAVED SAVIOUR 109 

God, if we succumb to the fascinations of 
the world-spirit. To give a guinea to this 
society or that, to take one's place on a 
committee or council, to attend anni- 
versary meetings or mingle in the 
enthusiasm with which the burning 
oratory of eminent speakers is received, 
is like attempting to extinguish a fire 
with the contents of a watering-can. 
Men can only be saved from their sins 
by an absolute sacrifice on the part of 
mother, wife, lover, or friend. Society 
can only be saved by a sacrifice similar to 
that which is said to have closed the 
yawning gulf in the market-place of 
Eome, when the scion of a noble house, 
fully armed, spurred his charger into the 
ghastly chasm. It is when the Church 
is crucified with Christ, and accounts 
that her blood is not too great a price 
to pay for an atonement through love 
and self-sacrifice — it is only under such 
circumstances that a work of lasting 
revival can be inaugurated. 



110 THE WIDENESS OF GOD'S MEBCY 

But out of all the anguish of the 
Church's travail there will be born 
the age which many wise men and 
prophets were permitted to see, though 
not to enter. The first day of a new 
week will dawn. Men shall hunger no 
more, neither thirst any more. There 
will be liberty, for men will bear each 
other's burdens ; equality, for the down- 
trodden and oppressed will be raised to 
the level of the more fortunate ; and 
brotherhood, for the love of God will be 
the all-including bond of humanity,, 
The groans and woes of creation shall 
be exchanged for the joy of a mother 
over her first-born. Not by the crash 
of revolution, but by the spiral stair- 
case of evolution, shall the world pass 
from the chaos of a formless void to a 
cosmos of perfect beauty and order, con- 
cerning which the Creator shall say, " It 
is very good." The coral island of that 
golden age is by this time not very far 
from emerging above the surface of the 



THE UNSAVED SAVIOUR 111 

stormy waters. For long ages it has 
been climbing upwards from the ocean- 
depths, beneath the directing and mould- 
ing hand of God, and lo ! the hour is at 
hand for the manifestation in its Eden 
of the sons of God. Then the Son of Man 
shall see of the travail of His soul and 
be satisfied. Then the mystery of God 
will be finished. Then a great voice will 
be heard in Heaven, saying, " Behold, I 
make all things new ; I am Alpha and 
Omega, the beginning and the end." 

Thus heavenward all things tend. For all 

were once 
Perfect, and all must be at length restored. 
So God has greatly purposed, who would else 
In His dishonoured works Himself endure 
Dishonour, and be wrong'd without redress. 

Haste then, and wheel away a shatter'd world, 
Ye slow-revolving seasons ! We would see 
A world that does not dread and hate His laws, 
And suffer for its crime ; would learn how fair 
The creature is that God pronounces good. 



VI 



THE "FAK-OFF DIVINE EVENT" 

" Then cometh the end, when He shall deliver 
up the kingdom to G-od, even the Father, when 
He shall have abolished all rule and all authority 
and power." — 1 Cor. xv. 25. 

The end is always coming. Nothing 
that pertains to our mortal life is unend- 
ing. So soon as anything begins beneath 
these heavens, with more or less speed 
it hastens towards its end. 

The young man enters a great com- 
mercial house. Slowly he rises from 
post to post, until he becomes one of its 
partners, and finally the sole proprietor. 
His name is known and honoured 
through the world. His cheque is taken 
for cash, his word is a certain security. 
Years of honour and wealth pass quickly 
onward, till one day he shuts his. desk 
for the last time, slams and locks his 



THE " FAR-OFF DIVINE EVENT " 113 

safe, says u good afternoon " to the 
porter, and goes out on the street, never 
to re-enter the premises which have 
known him for fifty years. 

A young girl enters the house which 
her husband has prepared for her, and 
where she is to reign as hostess and 
mistress. Children are born and grow 
up, servants get grey - headed in her 
service. She lives to see her silver, her 
golden, and her diamond wedding day. 
But at last the end comes, and all that 
is mortal of her is carried down the steps 
up which she tripped so merrily as a 
laughing bride. 

An end comes at last for the poor 
patient in the cancer ward, one of whose 
chief comforts is the knowledge that 
there is an inevitable time-limit beyond 
which the terrible suffering cannot pass. 

The end comes to the long separation 

between the parted lovers. Whilst the 

one goes to the front, or travels round 

the world on some commercial quest, the 

8 



114 THE WIDENESS OF GOD'S MERCY 

other is comforted by remembering that 
every throb of the travelling clock is one 
nearer reunion. An end comes to the 
longest, saddest, weariest life. The 
shadow on the dial at last reaches the 
lowest step. The Angelus chimes out 
in the tower; the last rook joins the 
noisy brotherhood in the tall trees. 

Be the day dreary, or be the day long, 

At last it ringeth to evensong. 

There is great comfort in this thought 
of finality. We would not live always 
We are quite glad to reach the inn, and 
realise that the long trudge is done, even 
though new and difficult experiences may 
be awaiting us on the morrow. Some 
of our fellow-travellers desire the end 
because they are wearied with the great- 
ness and difficulties of the way ; others 
because they shrink from its perils and 
dangers ; others because in buoyant hope 
they anticipate the new and untrodden 
experiences that lie hidden behind the 
hills, Perhaps, for the most part, there 



THE "FAR-OFF DIVINE EVENT " 115 

is more desire than dread at the thought 
of the inevitable end ; yet some dread it. 
"It is better," they say, "to bear the 
ills we have, than to fly to others that 
we know not of." But whether we 
desire or dread, the great ship is bear- 
ing us all forward to the harbour where 
the voyage shall end, though what shall 
transpire then, apart from this Book, 
who knows ! 

The meaning of this verse becomes 
clear as soon as we understand the 
reference to the pronouns. "Then 
cometh the end, when He (i.e., Christ) 
shall deliver up the kingdom to God, 
even the Father, when He shall have 
abolished all rule and all authority and 
power. For He must reign till He 
(i.e., God the Father) hath put all His 
enemies under His feet." From this it 
is clear that our Lord has come forth 
from the Father to put down all the 
evil forces that are making havoc of the 
original creation; that the Father is 



116 THE WIDENESS OF GOD's MERCY 

pledged to set Him as King upon His 
holy hill; and that all the Divine energy 
is at work, never to stay or diminish 
the force of its mighty operation, until 
the Divine character is justified, and 
God shall be All in All. 

The Christian Church is therefore 
filled with a great hope. We do not 
minimise the forces by which God's 
purpose is opposed. It is impossible to 
speak lightly of the pressure of evil as 
we meet it in all classes of our civilisa- 
tion — in the highest circles of society 
and the lowest depths — but we can look 
forward with unhesitating confidence to 
the issue. There can be no doubt that 
light and love will conquer darkness and 
hate ; there is no doubt that all things 
shall at last be made new, and that the 
anthem will ring out as a sound of many 
waters, and as a voice of mighty thunder, 
saying, " Hallelujah, for the Lord our 
God, the Almighty, reigneth." 

We may turn aside here to learn the 



THE " FAR-OFF DIVINE EVENT " 117 

lesson taught by the discovery of the 
geologist, which shows that through 
ages of conflict, cataclysm, storm and 
apparent anarchy, God's purpose has 
pursued its path towards the order and 
beauty of the natural world. Often 
during those long dark ages we might 
have despaired, had we watched some 
terrific outbreak of natural forces that 
seemed to defy the hand of the Creator. 
Sometimes when our planet was robed 
in a garment of vegetation, which 
covered the valleys and hills with the 
exquisite beauty of fern and flower, of 
shadowing tree and spreading shrub, 
some outbreak of volcanic disturbance 
would plunge these fair forms into the 
dark cellars underground, and it w 7 ould 
seem as though God had wrought in 
vain ; but had we been able to wait long 
enough to watch the advance of the 
Divine plan, we should have found that 
these apparent drawbacks were but steps 
of the mighty process of preparing 



118 THE WIDENESS OF GOD'S MERCY 

man's future home. Can we expect it 
to be otherwise in the moral and 
spiritual world ? Do not the same 
laws rule there? Is it not true there 
also, that the stormy wind fulfils God's 
word, and that earthquake, tempest, 
and revolut^ L are bringing about the 
coming of the kingdom and the per- 
formance of His will — " as in heaven so 
on earth ? " 

It is impossible to believe that God can 
have put His hand to anything that shall 
ultimately defy His will. The fact that 
Jesus our Lord shed His blood upon the 
soil of our earth shows to what expendi- 
ture the infinite God is prepared to go 
to undo the evil causd by sin. The 
coming of the Holy Spirit is a guarantee 
that the sternal Trinity has put Its 
hand to the plough, from which there 
can be no looking back. Before the 
creation of all things, God considered 
whether He was able with ten thousand 
to meet him that came against Him 



THE "FAR-OFF DIVINE EVENT " 119 

with twenty thousand, and, because He 
was well assured of the result, did not 
hesitate to go forward. God — using the 
speech of man — has embarked too much 
capital in the history of our race to be 
able to afford to lose it. He knows 
what He is doing ; nothing has fallen 
out which was not anticipated in His 
eternal plan ; nothing with which He 
is unable to cope ; nothing that shall 
not subserve His purpose. Be of good 
cheer, fellow disciples; the night is 
stormy, but daybreak is at hand; the 
waves threaten to engulf the boat, but 
the Master at the predestined moment 
will come walking on the waves as 
though they were a pavement of 
alabaster ! 

The Apostle, in looking forward to 
the great future, anticipates the end 
being put to three of the most familiar 
circumstances of Christian thought and 
experience. 

1. Christ will abolish all rule and 



120 THE WIDENESS OF GOD'S MERCY 

all authority and power. The rebellion 
which is in the moral world against the 
will and rule of God is often compared 
to the waves that surge across the 
ocean, lifting their crests of foam high 
in the air : " The floods have lifted up, 
Lord, the floods have lifted up their 
voice. " Look where you will there is 
the yeasty foam, the rush and roar of 
the breaker, the thunder of the surf as 
it hurls itself upon the beach. Both 
earth and heaven seem to be involved 
in the conflict of will against the govern- 
ment of God. Men fancy themselves to 
be free ; first they mutter, and afterwards 
say more boldly and defiantly, " Let us 
break His bands asunder, and cast away 
His cords from us." And God appears 
sometimes to sit still in silence whilst 
they work on ; and, as their designs seem 
to prosper, human hearts begin to fail 
them for fear. 

But " the Lord on high is mightier 
than the noise of many waters ; yea, 



THE " FAR-OFF DIVINE EVENT ' 121 



than the mighty waves of the sea." 
" Thou stillest the noise of the waves, 
and the tumult of the people." " The 
Lord sitteth upon the floods ; yea, He 
sits King for ever." The great Armada 
comes in its pride across the waters, 
and the motto that England struck 
upon its medal, when that proud fleet 
was baffled, serves for an epitaph over 
all antagonism to God's Kingdom: "The 
Lord blew upon them, and they were 
scattered." Men may work against 
God's kingdom, as the waves rave and 
rage, but as the moon commands the 
proud waters into tidal waves, so God 
will have His way at last. In the 
meantime the Ark of God moves on the 
face of the waters. 

Christ must reign until all enemies 
are made the footstool of His feet. He 
shall abolish all rule and all authority 
and power. The universe may be filled 
with the armies of the foe marshalled 
for fight, but the decisive victory was 



122 THE WIDENESS OF GOD S MEKCY 

won on the Cross, which has really 
settled the final issue. Having put off 
from Himself the principalities and 
powers, He made a show of them 
openly, triumphing over them in His 
Cross, His Grave, His Eesurrection, and 
His x\scension to the right hand of 
power. And when the drama is played 
out to the end, we shall find that all 
ungodly power and rebellious opposition 
shall be hushed down into dead silence, 
never again to revive. 

What is true of the universe shall be 
realised also in our hearts, There also 
Christ puts down all the rule and 
authority and power of tyrannous pas- 
sion and unruly desire. It seems too 
much to hope for. 

Yet shall it be, We know it shall. 
Jesus, look to Thy faithfulness. 

And this not after years have elapsed, 
and the power of our nature is subdued 
and tempered by the softening touch of 
time, but now, and here, to-day. The 



THE " FAR-OFF DIVINE EVENT*' 123 

mistake with so many of us has been 
that we have endeavoured by resolutions, 
and in the fervour of our own self-will, 
to master ourselves, instead of quietly 
opening the windows of our souls God- 
ward. God's action is quiet, soft, 
gentle, but omnipotent as light. Offer 
your whole being to Him. Eadium is 
not more irresistible in its effect. Be 
eontent for the X-rays of the Divine 
nature to play on the cancerous growth 
which has struck its fangs into your 
being, and believe that He will bring into 
captivity every imagination o*» thought 
that rears itself against His supremacy. 
" Lift up your heads, ye gates, and be 
ye lift up ye everlasting doors, and the 
King of Glory, strong and mighty, 
mighty in battle, shall enter in." 

2. Christ shall abolish death. " T u e 
last enemy that shall be destroyed is 
death," for all enemies are to be put 
beneath His feet. 

The word translated " destroyed " is the 



124 THE WIDENESS OF GOD'S MKKCX 

same as is used in Eom. vi. of the 
destruction, or setting aside, of the body 
of the sins of the flesh in the Cross and 
Resurrection of our Lord. 

It seems as though we are encouraged 
to believe that Christ is going to give us 
back all that death has deprived us of, 
so that its effects shall be absolutely 
annulled. Death has severed us from 
our loved ones, broken our close-knit 
intercourse, compelled us to spend our 
years in solitariness and loneliness. We 
shall go to them whom we have loved 
long since and lost awhile, though they 
cannot return to us, and it appears as 
though the joys of the days that are 
dead shall never come back. 

But they shall come back, more cer- 
tainly than the flowers of next spring. 
Have we been severed from fond hearts ? 
We shall feel their pulse again next our 
own. Have we missed the familiar 
intercourse ? We shall see eye to eye, 
and know as we are known. Have we 



THE " FAR-OFF DIVINE EVENT " 125 

been lonely and desolate? We shall 
come to an innumerable company of 
angels, and to the spirits of just men 
made perfect. Whereas thou wast deso- 
late and solitary, thy heart shall be 
called Hephzibah and Beulah, for thy 
God delighteth in thee, and thou shalt 
find thyself in the midst of solemn troops 
and sweet societies and loving com- 
panions. Has death marred thy body, 
disfiguring and spoiling its beauty ? All 
traces of its havoc shall be removed — the 
body of the Eesurrection shall be far 
fairer and more quickly responsive to the 
east wish of the soul than the body of 
mortality. In the incorruptible we shall 
be able to traverse spaces and perform 
labours for which the body of this cor- 
ruptible is altogether inadequate. Then 
shall death be swallowed up in victory, 
then the poison of its sting shall have 
been eliminated from the system, then 
shall the victory of the grave be reversed. 
Whatever death has done shall be 



126 THE WIDENBSS OF GOD ? S MERCY 

undone. It shall be as when all traces 
of the storm that raged yesterday are 

absolutely obliterated and wiped out, and 
the birds of peace sit placidly on the 
tranquil and sparkling wavelets. 

3. Christ si/ all bring to a close His 
mediatorial reign. He shall give up the 
Kingdom to God, even the Father. He 
assumed it for a definite purpose and 
time, and when He has finished all that 
is in His heart, He will give it back to 
Him from Whom He received it. It was 
the Father's Kingdom originally — " Our 
Father which art in heaven, Thy King- 
dom come." It was entrusted to His 
hands as the Father's Vicegerent. It 
is being administered for Him in His 
Father's interests, and for His Father's 
glory. It will be continued until the 
Father is universally acknowledged, and 
then He shall deliver it up to God, even 
the Father, Who shall be All in All. 
There will be no further need of the 
Mediator, because He will have brought 



THE "FAR-OFF DIVINE EVENT*' 127 

us to God. There will be no further 
need for the putting forth of His might 
to subdue all things to Himself, because 
they will be subdued. " Now is come 
the salvation, and the power, and the 
Kingdom of our God, and the authority 
of His Christ." 

There is a sense in which the Lord 
Jesus Christ is also doing this in our 
hearts. There also He is accomplishing 
the work of Mediator, which is to be 
consummated when His own words shall 
be fulfilled : " I say not that I will pray 
the Father for you, for the Father 
Himself loveth you." He is able to keep 
us from falling, and present us faultless 
before the Throne of His Father's glory 
with exceeding joy. Then to us also God 
shall be All in All. 

It is good to know the end or goal 
at which our blessed Lord is aiming, 
because it is so much easier to co-operate 
with Him for the accomplishment of His 
purposes. We remember His words, and 



128 THE WIDENESS OF GOD'S MERC* 

how He said : " I have not called you 
servants, but I have called you friends, 
for all things that I heard from My 
Father, I have made known unto you." 
Let us desire and seek that He shall say 
as much to us. Let us ask to be taken 
into the circle of His inner friends, and 
to be informed as to what He is set to 
accomplish. 

Then, as the full glory of His mighty 
plan is revealed to us, piece by piece, 
like the tabernacle in pattern to Moses 
on the Mount, we shall go back to the 
plain with so true a conception filling 
our hearts that we shall no longer work 
with the drudgery of the day-labourer, 
but with the intelligence of the skilled 
artisan, who has seen the full plan of 
the great Architect's design. Be of good 
cheer. " He shall not fail, nor be dis- 
couraged" (no dim wick nor bruised reed 
is He — see E.V. margin), " till He have 
set judgment in the earth, and the isles 
shall wait for His law." 



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